MYbank, Backed by Alibaba’s Ant Group, Joins Chinese Digital Yuan Pilot

Online banking backed by Alibaba’s fintech giant Ant Group has joined China’s digital yuan pilot program, he said on Monday, as Beijing expands trials of possibly deploying e-money to for mass use purposes.

MYBank, supported by Ant, said it was one of the parties involved in Chinese e-money research and development. He plans to “advance the lawsuit in accordance with the Comprehensive Arrangement of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC),” a bank spokesman said.

To date, the Chinese central bank’s digital currency pilot project has been primarily public by state-owned banks, rather than private banks.

WeBank, backed by Tencent Holdings, is also participating in the digital yuan pilot, state-backed China Securities News said in a Feb.20 report, in which it also mentioned MYBank’s involvement. WeBank declined to comment.

MYbank and WeBank’s services will soon be introduced in the PBOC’s Yuan digital app, according to China Securities News and a screenshot of the app seen by Reuters. The electronic wallets of the two private lenders will be similar to the functions offered by the six public lenders during the trial, the newspaper added.

China is at the forefront of the global race to launch the central bank’s digital currencies, and has so far held national trials in several major cities, including Shenzhen, Chengdu and Hangzhou.

More than 2 billion yuan ($ 309.30 million) has so far been spent using China’s new digital currency in 4 million separate transactions, PCB Governor Yi Gang told reporters in November.