Could China be the first to rollout a Central Bank Digital Currency?

China's central bank has confirmed according to Coindesk that it will be testing a mobile application for storing and exchanging the digital yuan, after screenshots circulated on social media.  The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) aims to roll out internal tests for the national digital currency (DECP) in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong’An and Chengdu, according to the bank’s Friday statement. 

The Bank of China emphasized that this is just a test. “The rumored information about the DECP on the internet is part of the test in our research and development process and it does not mean the digital yuan has been launched officially,” an unnamed official from the China Digital Currency Institute said in the statement. 

The official said the pilot projects in these four cities are internal closed-circuit tests that will not affect commercial operations of the companies involved, Chinese financial markets or fiat currency circulation outside the test environment. PBoC did not give a clear schedule for the projects. However, the bank said it plans to run another internal test during the Winter Olympic Games hosted in Beijing in 2022.