Can digital currency be used in Xiongan? On-site visit: Small-scale testing, Starbucks and others have not yet been connected

Source: 21st Century Business Herald, Author: Hu Tianjiao, Bian Wanli

The digital RMB was officially unveiled in Shenzhen, and 50,000 lucky winners started their digital RMB experience journey. In addition to Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong'an, and Chengdu are also pilot areas for the digital RMB. Recently, a reporter from 21st Century Business Herald visited Xiong'an New Area and explored its digital RMB pilot as an ordinary user.

Overall, Xiongan's digital RMB is still being tested on a small scale and in a small scope, and local citizens have different perceptions of it. Some say they have never heard of it, while others are looking forward to it. At the same time, foreign-funded enterprises such as Starbucks, which were previously rumored, do not support digital RMB payments for the time being, but the testing scope is still mainly in the catering industry.

The promotion is mainly based on offline banking, and foreign companies such as Starbucks have not yet been connected

The pilot scenarios of digital RMB in Xiongan New Area are mainly in the retail and catering industry. Earlier media reports said that the invitation list for the digital RMB pilot in Xiongan New Area includes 19 companies such as Starbucks, McDonald's, Subway, UnionPay unmanned supermarket, Weilai Bakery, and Qingfeng Baozi Shop.

However, when reporters asked McDonald's, Starbucks, Subway and other stores in Xiongan New Area, they all said that they have not yet participated in the digital RMB experiment and cannot use digital RMB payment methods at present. The current payment methods only include WeChat, Alipay, Cloud QuickPass and cash.

When passing by a UnionPay unmanned supermarket, the reporter followed the operating procedures to enter and experience shopping. Apart from scanning the code at the entrance, there was no other action throughout the process, and the payment was automatically completed when taking the goods out. Although the shopping experience was relatively fast, this series of processes was realized through the "Yunsuanfu" APP, and there was no sign of digital RMB.

Fortunately, a staff member of a Qingfeng steamed bun shop told reporters that although their store cannot use digital RMB for the time being, she applied for her own digital RMB when the bank promoted it so that customers can use digital RMB to pay in the future. However, the specific software page is not convenient to disclose.

After searching for a while, the reporter finally found a merchant that has access to the digital RMB - the Weilaike Cake Shop. The clerk of the shop said that day, "The bank came to our store to promote it before, but it was directly contacted with the store manager, and only the store manager knows how to operate the digital RMB."

Villeco Bakery

Another clerk said, “The bank came to talk to our store manager before, saying that this can be paid with digital RMB, but most customers usually pay with WeChat and Alipay. For so long, there has been only one customer who asked to pay with digital RMB, but for some reason the settlement was not successful, and finally used other payment methods. Except for the store manager, we will not use this (digital RMB) for the time being.”

When asked whether banks offer discounts when promoting digital RMB payments to merchants, a clerk at Weilike said that the bank did not mention mandatory use when promoting it, and the store still charges normal prices, but customers are not sure whether there are other discounts.

As for which merchants support digital RMB payments, the reporter learned from various sources that the merchants currently participating in the test are mostly concentrated in car washes, cake shops, restaurants, and vending machines. Foreign-funded companies such as Starbucks do not support digital RMB payments for the time being.

Citizens have different understandings and few actively apply for digital RMB

During the reporter's questioning, some store staff said that they have not yet adopted the digital RMB settlement method, but some staff also said that they did not know what digital RMB was.

Whether it is the Citizen Service Center in Xiongan New Area or the commercial center as the locals call it, the flow of people is not large, and it can even be said to be sparse. The Xiongan Citizen Center is still under construction, and there are few construction workers and staff in the park. Therefore, the flow of people in many shops is very small, and no one is seen using digital RMB. The aforementioned Villeco Cake Shop, although located in what the locals call a busy area, still has a small flow of people, with only a few pedestrians passing by, and most stores do not seem to be doing well.

Commercial Street Overview

In this entire commercial street, the owner of a restaurant interviewed by the reporter said that he knew about the digital RMB, but his store was not among the pilot stores. He also told the reporter that he should go to the Citizen Service Center to check it out, as he heard that that was the concentration area for digital RMB.

Unlike the pilot in Shenzhen, in Xiongan District, even in the Citizen Service Center, neither the pilot nor the non-pilot stores have the "digital RMB" logo. Customers can only try their luck and ask if they can use digital RMB to pay, but most of the answers they get are no. The only pilot cake shop has two employees who don't know how to operate the payment.

Among the four taxi drivers the reporter took in Xiongan New Area, some had never heard of the digital RMB, and some even knew about it but still wondered what the difference was between it and WeChat and Alipay. "The three counties in Xiongan have less than 1 million people in total," said a taxi driver. "If you want to use the digital RMB, you can go somewhere else. Few people use it here, and most people have never even heard of it. I only learned about the digital RMB through the news, but I don't understand what the difference is between it and WeChat and Alipay."

Some users who have applied for digital RMB at local banks in Xiong'an said that applying for digital RMB requires a bank card of a certain bank, because using digital RMB requires taking money out of the bank card before spending, which is similar to the process of binding a bank card and then transferring money to WeChat and Alipay. Or you can directly accept transfers from other people's digital RMB wallets and then spend.

They further said, "The business staff told us that the digital RMB requires a 'wallet', and your money is stored in this wallet. Unlike WeChat and Alipay, the digital RMB wallet directly stores RMB without any intermediary. You can think of it as our physical wallet in electronic form. However, applying for a digital RMB wallet requires a two- or three-day "white list" review period, and it can only be used after passing. At that time, some people used digital RMB wallets to pay on coffee machines, which looked very similar to the operations of Alipay and WeChat Pay, and the speed was also very fast."