Alibaba affiliate Ant Group is participating in China’s digital currency trial, according to a report by China Securities Journal.
MYbank — an online bank in which Ant has a 30% stake — allows some users to link their accounts with China’s digital yuan app, the media report says.
According to the report, six state-owned banks in China have participated in the country’s digital currency trial.
Last year, the People’s bank of China — the country’s central bank — has distributed several million dollars’ worth of a digital yuan through an app for the trial while selected users can use digital yuan to shop from certain physical shops and on JD.com’s e-commerce app.
While the nature of MYbank’s participation in the trial is not clear, the bank said in a statement that it and Ant Group will together continue to support the research, development, and trial of PBOC’s e-CNY.
According to the online bank, it has more than 35 million small business and individual customers as of end-2020.
