China is Developing a Digital Currency
China’s central bank is conducting research to issue the country’s own sovereign digital currency.
Chinese central bank’s governor Zhou Xiaochuan said earlier this year that the People's Bank of China (PBOC) was looking into developing its own digital currency. The news comes on the back of the recent purge by Chinese authorities who in September issued an immediate ban on initial coin offerings, declaring them illegal and a threat to financial stability.
Yao Qian, who leads the research at the PBOC the country’s central bank, told the South China Morning Post, «what the central bank have in mind is a centralised digital currency.»
The Chinese authorities see virtual currency as a way to extend financial services to rural areas of the vast country. A digital tender will also be easier to trace allowing the central bank to monitor the whereabouts of the money and improve its monetary policies.
