In the last 18 to 24 months, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has said several times that the country is working on a digital version of the renminbi, although its delay indicates that developing the currency must have been challenging. The idea for it stems from China's 2025 plan, which aims to make the country a global leader in a range of technologies, but the plan to develop the digital currency is anchored in the official five-year plan.

The test of the RMB as a digital currency is now under way. Of course, payment transactions happen through mobile phones. Three mobile phone companies are involved, in addition to four select large banks — all are state-controlled. But the Chinese version of Facebook, called WeChat (which belongs to Tencent) is also involved in the test round. WeChat is used by almost all Chinese for many things, including making ordinary payments. This is why Tencent already controls approximately 40 percent of the Chinese digital payment market.