ASSESSMENTS
With the E-Yuan, China’s Government Cements Its Hold on the Economy
10 MIN READAug 9, 2021 | 20:54 GMT
A photo illustration shows digital currency coins in front of a Chinese flag in October 2019.
A photo illustration shows digital currency coins in front of a Chinese flag in October 2019.
(Chesnot/Getty Images)
Recent moves by the Chinese government and large state-owned banks to operate a “digitized” payments system and an official digital currency underline Beijing’s efforts to erode private payments platforms’ dominance and make financial transactions data available directly to the government. A regulatory crackdown on technology firms, statements by key officials on data security and financial risk, and a People’s Bank of China (PBOC) white paper on an official digital currency, the “e-yuan” (also referred to as the “e-CNY” or the Digital Currency Electronic Payment) all suggest Beijing’s growing interest in central bank digital currencies and financial technology (fintech). At the same time, the payments system and the e-yuan give Beijing a new tool to track domestic financial transactions and maintain and reassert a state monopoly on currency issuance and payments.
The PBOC said on July 31 it would “supervise and guide [fintech] platforms to make comprehensive rectification in accordance with regulatory requirements,” which it claimed was to implement Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee and State Council decisions “on tackling monopolies” and acting to prevent major financial risks.
The PBOC white paper, issued July 15, lays out some operational details but does not add to an understanding of how a central bank digital currency (CBDC) increases economic efficiency or reduces financial risk.
In discussing the recent regulatory crackdowns, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, the government’s senior economic official, said on July 29 that the “new stage of development” requires China to “balance the relationship between [economic] development and security,” which he said serves to “protect fair competition, promote the healthy and orderly development of capital [and] protects the interests of consumers.”
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology put technology companies on notice on July 30 after announcing that a new data security law will take effect Sept. 1, which will treat private sector protection of data and personal information as a national security issue.
A Primer on Central Bank Digital Currencies
Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are an electronic form of cash issued by a country’s official central bank for use on online or mobile payments platforms. They are not cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, which are privately issued, anonymous and decentralized outside the control of any authority. 65 countries are at some stage of researching or developing CBDCs, with China and Sweden at the most advanced stage of pilot programs to assess implementation. The U.S. Federal Reserve has promised a research paper in the next few months, but Chairman Jerome Powell has said it's better to get a CBDC right than it is to be first.
The Great Leap Forward Into Fintech
While China is already a significantly “cashless” society, fintech has until now been dominated by private sector firms encouraged by the government to innovate. The big state-owned banks had also, until now, been concentrated on directing credit to priority investments and financing government-owned companies.
The PBOC white paper estimates that as of 2019, 66% of all transactions in the economy (accounting for 59% of total value) were conducted via mobile payments platforms, with an additional 7% volume and 23% value accounted for by debit and credit cards.
Private payments platforms WeChat Pay (owned by Tencent) and Alipay (owned by Ant Group, the financial affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba) accounted for more than 90% of those digital payments, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
Estimates of mobile payments transactions in China range from $35 trillion in 2019 to $52 trillion, more than three times China’s GDP. In contrast, Venmo, PayPal and Zelle accounted for $98 billion in U.S. payments in 2019, with debit and credit cards issued by Visa, MasterCard and American Express, among others, used in transactions totaling $6.7 trillion in a $20 trillion economy.
China’s commanding world lead in fintech was enabled, in part, by the lack of a financial system when the country’s reform era began in 1978, as well as the absence of legacy pen-and-paper accounting systems so that new state-owned banks jumped unimpeded into computerized bookkeeping. The state-owned banks did not, however, focus on retail or consumer services. Private technology companies were also encouraged to fill the void and make additional sources of credit available for small- and medium-sized enterprises.
An estimated 1.2 billion Chinese already utilize digital payments methods. At least 90% of people living in Chinese cities now use QR codes and “digital wallets” on mobile phones, while those living in remote regions have access to payments platforms and 24-hour banking services from low-grade smartphones.
While China opposes decentralized cryptocurrencies, the popularity of bitcoin before the 2017 crackdown against it showed the domestic potential and interest in digital currencies.
Although developing blockchain technology used by cryptocurrencies is one of China’s strategic national development goals, the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies raises fears in China of losing control of the money supply and the ability to track transactions.
The PBOC discourages the use of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin or ethereum, which the bank has been trying to regulate since 2013. Under its official position that cryptocurrencies are speculative assets, the PBOC stated on July 30 that it would “maintain high pressure on virtual currency trading hype” by “severely cracking down on illegal activities of virtual currency.”
PBOC officials also denounce so-called stable coins (i.e. cryptocurrencies with value pegged to another asset) as causing financial instability.
Beijing is hoping to tap into the domestic popularity of digital currencies and the convergence between them and the digital economy. The introduction of the digital currency enables the reassertion of Beijing’s official role in fintech development, eating away at the current dominance of WeChat Pay and Alipay, at least as payment systems. Neither the government nor the PBOC, however, has explained the efficiencies to be achieved over the current system by using a central bank digital currency. Chinese officials are discrediting private payments platforms and presenting the e-yuan and state-owned banks as more reliable.
There is virtually no credit risk from WeChat Pay and Alipay since the PBOC required the companies to move deposits made against customers’ accounts to the bank between 2017-2019. China, however, is particularly risk-averse compared with Western countries. Whereas Western financial markets see risk as something to be quantified and managed, China’s national security paradigm and economic model view it as something to be preempted and eliminated completely in order to guarantee economic, financial and political stability
While the PBOC may fear duopoly control and the ability of Tencent and Ant Group to potentially extract economic rents from WeChat Pay and Alipay, respectively, regulatory actions could effectively preclude such behavior and effectively make the companies into financial utilities.
Most of the official statements from Beijing on the e-yuan stress a motive of greater financial inclusion, such as extending banking and financial services to China’s poorer rural areas, as well as improving efficiency and fairness. But key aspects of the e-yuan system are also aimed at replacing Tencent and Ant Group’s payment systems.
Eying China’s Economic Future
China has positioned the digital economy and the tech sector at the center of its economic future, with digital payments and digital currencies underpinning that shift. Beijing wants to ensure it has levers to monitor, collect information on and manage key aspects of the digital payments system. Although the PBOC stresses the e-yuan will have “controllable anonymity,” it could help to operationalize what until now has been a vaguely defined social credit system in which the Chinese government blacklists “unreliable” persons and entities with restricted access to various activities. Only small transactions will be partly anonymous but still require phone numbers, which in China are registered under real names using national identity numbers.
Technology is the core focus of China’s economic development plan for the next five years. The plan, which the National People’s Congress adopted on March 11, prioritizes developing cloud computing, big data analysis capabilities and the “Internet of Things” as critical to Chinese economy’s growth and advancement.
The PBOC’s Fintech Development Plan 2019-2021 previously called for strengthening the state’s role in guiding innovation and growth in financial technology. It also called for “revers[ing] the situation where key core technologies are controlled by others,” which was undoubtedly a reference to tech giants Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu.
In September 2020, China’s National Development and Reform Commission said turning the country into a “cyber superpower” through “informatization, digitalization and intelligentization” efforts was a national priority.
Once the e-yuan system eventually moves from the current pilot program to fully implemented national use, it will enable the Chinese government to substantially scale up its surveillance of financial flows across the economy. China is the farthest along of the major countries also considering central bank digital currencies. But the e-yuan system is still in its infancy, and various issues regarding its operation still need to be resolved. Much work in testing and development remains to be done before the currency is fully rolled out on a national scale, though China will try to expand the pilot program to use during the February 2022 Winter Olympics.
The PBOC will own and operate the e-yuan system, distributing currency through six state-owned banks, as well as WeChatPay and Alipay, which have already borne significant research and development costs in setting up and operationalizing mobile payments platforms.
Having a single digital currency also aligns with China’s data nationalization campaign, which is aimed at bringing isolated public databases within cities and provinces under one national database and doing the same with private data, in order for all of China’s tech initiatives to benefit from economies of scale. There may be anonymity for small peer-to-peer transactions on the e-yuan system, but even those must be through a mobile phone which in China requires a link to a real name and national identity number.
The new digital currency system will also allow for substantial data mining capabilities and directed surveillance of entities if ordered by authorities. Social governance or management is consistent with the Communist Party’s efforts to control society, and the digital yuan advances that goal.
Private international firms operating in China should, for now, not presume any privacy and/or data invisibility under the e-yuan system. Spending and data transfer restrictions on domestic and cross-border transactions may impact customer relations and global accounting processes.
While China has professed an interest in helping develop global standards on government-backed digital currencies, its absence from the BIS working group on the matter indicates otherwise.
While the e-yuan will ultimately increase Beijing’s access to information and its ability to surveil financial transactions, the Chinese government’s actual intent for the digital currency is multifaceted. China views digital currencies as the currencies of the future and wants to be a global leader in this technology. Though e-yuan is currently targeting China’s domestic retail sector, Beijing also sees the payment system as a future tool for international finance that could help erode the West’s dominance in international payment mechanisms like SWIFT. Domestically, digital currencies can also improve access to mobile payments for rural and elderly populations without mobile phones. Pilot programs targeting these demographics, however, have so far been coldly received. The central bank argues that the e-yuan could provide more user privacy from companies on third-party and peer-to-peer transactions, while Beijing’s access to these transactions is, technically, unlimited. A digital currency will also improve investigations into money laundering and other illicit finance, which can be politically motivated — particularly when applied as part of President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign. Finally, China recognizes that digital currencies are in their infancy and may open up novel methods of carrying out economic and monetary policy.
