China is stepping up efforts to encourage the use of its digital yuan in cross-border payments and overseas markets, offering an alternative amid an international frenzy over stablecoins, as it aims to reshape the global financial architecture now dominated by the US dollar.
China’s international operations centre for the digital yuan opened in Shanghai on Thursday, with the People’s Bank of China highlighting three platforms designed to accelerate the internationalisation of the digital Chinese currency.
“The evolution of monetary and payment systems in the digital era is a historical inevitability,” central bank deputy governor Lu Lei told a news conference on Wednesday.
“The PBOC is committed to providing open, inclusive and innovative solutions to improve the global cross-border payment system.”
One of the three platforms is a cross-border digital payment platform that will explore the use of the central bank-backed digital currency – also known as e-CNY – to improve the efficiency of international transactions.
Another is a blockchain service platform that will enable on-chain payments and provide standardised cross-chain transaction information transfers, and the third is a digital asset platform that will help existing financial infrastructure expand onto the blockchain by providing standardised, ready-to-use digital asset services.