Beijing subways now take digital RMB, with more transport modes to follow

Beijing will provide more application scenarios for digital renminbi in future after it announced an e-CNY service for taking subway lines in the city on Wednesday.

As China's capital and the national science and technology center, Beijing has been playing the leading role in bringing technological innovations into people's daily lives.

People in Beijing can now use digital renminbi to take all subway lines in the city, following the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu province, which announced its adoption of digital RMB in the transportation sector a day earlier.

"It was faster than I thought," said Yuan Fang, a 35-year-old Beijing resident who used the e-CNY to pay for the subway in the morning on her way to work. "I used to use the app by scanning a QR code linking to the WeChat digital wallet when taking subways. So it is not totally new for me."

She said she would love to use e-CNY in more places and to pay for more items or services, as she thinks it is safer and more direct than other e-payment methods.

The Beijing Municipal Transport Commission said people need to download a mobile app and link it with an Industrial and Commercial Bank of China bank account that has a digital RMB balance to access the service in subways.

The service is available on all 24 subway lines and four suburban railway lines in Beijing.

"The service is a result of financial digitalization in city development and Beijing will promote the application of digital RMB in more transportation scenarios," the commission said.

China has been promoting digital RMB applications both online and offline.

According to e-commerce giant JD, between Dec 11 and Jun 18, up to 450,000 users spent more than 100 million yuan ($15.5 million) in digital form on its platform.

Li Lihui, former president of Bank of China and head of the blockchain research working group at the National Internet Finance Association of China, said application scenarios for digital RMB involve almost all fields of commerce, trade and tourism in 10 pilot cities, with millions of merchants participating across the country.

He said he was confident that digital RMB will be able to be used in the future in various venues, such as hotels.