China’s e-Commerce Giant JD.com Accepting Digital Yuan on Singles Day

JD.com Accepting Digital Yuan on Singles Day

In a move to push the wide-scale adoption of the e-CNY, China’s popular e-commerce platform JD.com is accepting digital currency as payments for the first time during the biggest shopping event in the world, Singles Day. As part of the deal, the e-commerce giant collaborated with China Construction Bank to make this possible.

As of Nov. 11, more than 100,000 people had used China’s digital currency on JD’s app during the Singles Day promotion period which began the evening of Oct. 31 and ended on Thursday. Users are instructed on JD’s app on downloading China’s digital currency app including receiving 15 yuan ($2.34) to spend.

In April, JD.com announced cooperating with China’s central bank PBOC on the digital currency trials including paying the salaries of some of its employees using digital currencies in five Chinese cities Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Changsha, and Xi ‘an.

In August, the Nasdaq-listed shopping platform in collaboration with state-owned Bank of Communications handed out 500,000 e-CNY red envelopes in a giveaway worth a total of 20 million yuan ($3.1 million) to residents of Shanghai and Suzhou.

China’s Large-scale Digital Yuan Trials

Between October 2020 and August 2021, China spent at least 305 million yuan on major trials of e-CNY, according to data based on publicly available information. A white paper released in July by the central bank said e-CNY trials had seen nearly 21 million personal wallets opened and transactions worth a total of around 34.5 billion yuan (US$5.3 billion).

In fact, some of the Chinese cities have also adopted e-CNY for urban transport networks. In August, a Shanghai taxi company started to accept e-CNY payments. Oil giant Sinopec has also enabled digital yuan payments at 27 gas stations in Beijing in the same month.