News, data and analysis on tokenized assets, market design and digital economic systems.
Its reclassification of the e-CNY from a cash-like instrument to deposit money, effective 1 January 2026, means real-name wallet balances at authorised commercial banks pay interest, count toward reserve requirements and carry deposit insurance.
China's central bank, established on 1 December 1948, responsible for monetary policy, issuance and management of the renminbi, the payment system and macro-financial stability. From 1 January 2026 it reclassified the e-CNY from a cash-like instrument to deposit money: balances in real-name wallets at authorised commercial banks are deposit liabilities that pay interest at regulated deposit rates, count toward reserve requirement calculations and carry deposit insurance, while non-bank payment institutions must hold 100% reserves against the e-CNY they manage. Cumulative e-CNY transactions reached 3.48bn, worth about RMB 16.7tn, by the end of November 2025, and operations are now split between a domestic management centre and an e-CNY International Operation Center opened in Shanghai in September 2025, a structure that makes the currency's cross-border use an explicit institutional mandate rather than a by-product.
Developments in which People's Bank of China is a named party, newest first.
Bank of China settled the two largest transactions recorded on mBridge, the multi-central-bank digital currency platform, in June and July 2026. A CNY 11.3bn payment through its Shenzhen branch was followed by a HK$10bn payment through its Fujian branch, the…
The People's Bank of China launched an international operation centre for the digital renminbi in Shanghai, comprising a cross-border digital payment platform, a blockchain service platform and a digital asset platform. The central bank said the centre was intended to support internationalisation of the currency and the development of financial market services.
The central bank partners in Project mBridge announced that the cross-border multi-CBDC settlement platform had reached minimum viable product stage and invited further participants. The founding central banks were the Bank of Thailand, the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, the Digital Currency Institute of the People's Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority; the Saudi Central Bank joined as a full participant and more than 26 central banks were observing members.
The working group on e-CNY research and development of the People's Bank of China published a white paper reporting that, as of 30 June 2021, pilots covered more than 1.32 million scenarios and had recorded 70.75 million transactions worth RMB 34.5bn, with 20.87 million personal wallets and 3.51 million corporate wallets opened. Pilot areas by then included Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong'an, Chengdu, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics venues, Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xi'an, Qingdao and Dalian.
The Digital Currency Institute of the People's Bank of China and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates joined the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Bank of Thailand in a project hosted by the BIS Innovation Hub Centre in Hong Kong to build a prototype for cross-border foreign exchange payments on distributed ledger technology. The work, which grew out of Inthanon-LionRock, targeted payment-versus-payment settlement across jurisdictions and later became known as mBridge.
What issued, what settled, what the supervisors changed, with the numbers behind it and a note on what the numbers do not show. One email, Thursday mornings.
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