Hong Kong citizens not interested in digital yuan: Reports

The Chinese government’s beloved task of cardinal slope integer currency (CBDC) has not sparked overmuch enthusiasm successful the citizens of Hong Kong. In the archetypal 4 days since the “digital yuan” (also known arsenic “e-CNY”) hard wallets became accessible to the islanders, lone 625 Hongkongers had really obtained them. 

As reported by the section paper connected Feb. 28, the metropolis of Shenzhen installed the machines, dispensing the hard wallets for integer yuan, the archetypal of a benignant successful the full country. Due to the city’s unsocial determination arsenic a gateway from Hong Kong to mainland China, the machines were programmed to service the citizens of Hong Kong exclusively.

The extremity of the initiative, launched by the Bank of China and astute paper supplier Octopus Card, was to contented 50,000 hard wallets by March 31. However, during the archetypal 4 days aft the machines’ installation, lone 625 wallets person really been demanded by the customers.

Apparently, adjacent the 20% discount connected purchases from 1,400 section vendors, subsidized for the CBDC owners by the government, hasn’t go a decisive origin for the imaginable holders.

However, arsenic the Securities Times highlights, the section authorities volition proceed their efforts to beforehand the integer yuan for Hong Kong citizens, including the task of a SIM-card hard wallet, which would harvester the fiscal and communicational functions. The crushed lies successful a greater governmental ngo to integrate the precocious autarkic land metropolis successful the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area.

Related: Hong Kong’s crypto ambition gets subtle motion from Beijing

The adoption of e-CNY successful the state is inactive alternatively slow, contempt the Bank of China's efforts. In October 2022, 2 years aft the CBDC’s instauration to the market, cumulative e-CNY transactions lone crossed 100 cardinal yuan ($14 billion). In February 2023, during the Lunar New Year period, aggregate cities reportedly gave distant implicit 180 cardinal yuan ($26.5 million) worthy of the CBDC successful programs specified arsenic subsidies and depletion coupons to boost the adoption.