Chinese Bank Disables Digital Yuan Wallet After Soft Launch Draws Wide Attention

A major Chinese state-owned bank has opened up the access to the wallet service of China’s Digital Yuan to public users.

By searching “Digital Currency” in Chinese, clients of China Construction Bank (CCB) can now navigate to a Digital Currency Wallet feature inside the bank’s mobile app. Users can further activate the digital yuan wallet by registering with a mobile phone number that is associated with their bank accounts at CCB.

It is unclear when CCB opened up this service to public users but it marks a notable move towards a wider user adoption for the Digital Yuan initiative, commonly known as DCEP, which is led by the People’s Bank of China.

The wallet’s interface seen by CoinDesk shows each user that has activated the service via CCB will be assigned to a specific wallet ID, which can be used to make transactions between the wallet and users’ CCB bank accounts.

In addition, users can also send and receive digital Yuan to each other by putting in either a unique wallet ID address or an associated mobile phone number.

The registration open-up follows months of internal tests as the big-four Chinese state-owned commercial banks have all developed their respective digital yuan wallets under the direction of the PBoC. It remains to be seen whether CCB’s digital currency wallet will enable more applications that can use the digital yuan.

As of now, the other three state-owned banking giants have not yet opened up the access to public users. CoinDesk reported in April that the Agricultural Bank of China was already testing a digital currency wallet for invited users and merchants only.

The PBoC is also working with DiDi to apply digital yuan into more payment scenarios within the Chinese ride-hailing giant’s services.

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