Meituan joins ride-hailing startup Didi Chuxing in exploring applications for a digital yuan, which lives on a mobile wallet application and offers Beijing greater control of the country’s financial system. Like Didi, Meituan hosts billions of dollars in daily transactions in realms from meal delivery to online travel services, and its participation would drive mass acceptance and widen Beijing’s global lead in government-backed virtual currencies. The central bank’s research wing is also in discussions on trials with Bilibili Inc., another Tencent-backed company that streams video, one of the people said.
Virtual cash would be quicker and easier to use than the paper kind and would offer authorities a degree of control never possible with physical money. The rise of independent cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether, meanwhile, have created the danger that a huge swath of economic activity will occur out of the view of policymakers.
Meituan joins ride-hailing startup Didi Chuxing in exploring applications for a digital yuan, which lives on a mobile wallet application and offers Beijing greater control of the country’s financial system. Like Didi, Meituan hosts billions of dollars in daily transactions in realms from meal delivery to online travel services, and its participation would drive mass acceptance and widen Beijing’s global lead in government-backed virtual currencies. The central bank’s research wing is also in discussions on trials with Bilibili Inc., another Tencent-backed company that streams video, one of the people said.
