Money in Real Time

In January 2016, the People’s Bank of China announced that it would soon launch its own crypto currency (CryptoYuan), but the official launch date is still unknown. At the same time, the project receives strong support from high-ranking officials, in particular from Wang Yifei, one of the deputy governors of the People’s Bank of China.

WHO GOES ON THE WAY OF CHINA?

Not only China seeks to get rid of cash. At the end of last year, in order to combat corruption and accelerate the launch of digital mutual settlements, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to destroy 86% of banknotes circulating in the country. Bank of Canada, Deutsche Bundesbank and heads of financial institutions of Singapore are currently studying the possibilities of digital currencies.

To print money and fight against counterfeiters is too expensive for China as for a country with a population of 1.4 billion people, especially taking into account the costs of maintaining cash in circulation and mutual settlements. Adding digital currencies to cash in circulation can increase the speed of operations, provide convenience and transparency of transactions.

“Cutting costs is an obvious benefit, but moving from an existing system to digital settlement on a blockbuster platform is much more important,” said Larry Cao, content director at the CFA Institute in Hong Kong. “You get the opportunity to pay directly to anyone: the bank or the seller. The block system will change the entire infrastructure. This is a revolutionary approach. ”

Blocking is a digital register that contains the payment history of each product. If the approach of the People’s Bank of China finds broad support, it will challenge existing intermediaries, such as banks and the world’s leading payment systems: Alipay, Alibaba and WeChat, Tencent.

“I will not say that banks and payment systems will disappear, but their role will certainly change,” said Beijing PWC expert in China William Guy. “They have to find their place in the new payment system, and we are likely to see innovative business models in this sector.”

MONEY IN REAL TIME

“The use of the block-system, the technology underlying the digital currency bitcoin, will allow the People’s Bank of China to track transactions in real time and collect complete and reliable information for the formation of financial indicators such as the growth of the money supply,” Duan believes.