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China digital currency: Shenzhen lures Hong Kong tourists to use e-CNY with shopping discounts

China is hoping to drive cross-border use of its sovereign digital currency by offering shopping discounts to tourists from Hong Kong who open and pay with e-CNY wallets in the southern technology hub of Shenzhen.

Hong Kong residents can now obtain a physical e-CNY card via a dedicated machine at the Lo Wu border crossing, according to a report by the state-backed Shenzhen News on Tuesday.

The card, issued by the Bank of China and marked "Greater Bay Area", can be issued within minutes and topped up using an Octopus card - Hong Kong's dominant cashless payments system for public transport and retail.

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People head to the Lo Wu border control point in Hong Kong. Photo: AFP alt=People head to the Lo Wu border control point in Hong Kong. Photo: AFP>

Users can pay at stores by tapping the card on e-CNY terminals, the report said. They can also enjoy a 20 per cent discount when shopping with e-CNY at more than 1,400 designated outlets in the Lo Wu district, which launched a pilot test of the technology in November.

At least 625 Hong Kong residents had opened an e-CNY wallet from the start of the campaign last Wednesday to Sunday, according to the report, citing data from the Shenzhen branch of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank.

The bank planned to explore "more forms of digital currency wallets", such as integrating wallets into SIM cards so that visitors from Hong Kong can use the same card for both communications and payments, a branch official was quoted as saying.

China is on track to become a global pioneer in adopting a sovereign digital currency. In the past three years, the country has expanded trials of the e-CNY to 26 cities and zones, with the size of digital yuan in circulation reaching 13.6 billion yuan (US$2 billion) at the end of December, according to PBOC.

A woman uses an Octopus card to pay minibus fare in Hong Kong. Photo: Xiaomei Chen alt=A woman uses an Octopus card to pay minibus fare in Hong Kong. Photo: Xiaomei Chen>

Hong Kong has been actively involved in the cross-border transactions of e-CNY. It completed last year a 40-day trial involving mainland China, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates, handling more than 160 cross-border payments and foreign exchange transactions totalling over 150 million yuan.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) was also exploring a bilateral arrangement with the Bank of Thailand to allow people to pay at shops and restaurants in the Southeast Asian nation using the Faster Payment System - a payment platform in Hong Kong connecting traditional banks and digital wallet operators, HKMA's deputy-CEO Howard Lee said in September.

Lee added that the authority had also begun the second phase of its e-CNY trial, which was expanded to include three more banks in addition to the one bank in the first phase. They were HSBC, Hang Seng Bank, Standard Chartered and Bank of China Hong Kong.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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