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'WeChat Pay and Alipay own an ocean of data,' so the e-CNY rollout facilitates China's anti-trust campaign and helps the government control big data, he added. Whoever owns data thrives,' said another banking official tasked with promoting the e-CNY. In public, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) says e-CNY won't compete with AliPay or WeChat Pay, and serves only as a 'backup' or 'redundancy'.īut in private, state banks marketing the digital fiat currency for the central bank bluntly describe Beijing's intention to undercut the duo's dominance. Ma's Alibaba Group Holdings was recently hit with a record US$2.8 billion antitrust penalty.

Regulators scuppered Ant's record US$37 billion IPO in November and earlier this month imposed a sweeping restructuring on the fintech conglomerate controlled by Jack Ma. That turf encroachment coincides with Beijing's expanding effort to clamp down on anticompetitive behaviour in the internet sector, part of a wider reining in of the clout of sector heavyweights. The official is not authorised to speak with media and declined to be identified.Ĭhina's development of a sovereign digital currency, which is far ahead of similar initiatives in other major economies, looks increasingly poised to erode the dominance of Ant Group's Alipay and Tencent's WeChat Pay in online payments. 'People will realise that digital yuan payment is so convenient that I don't have to rely on Alipay or WeChat Pay anymore,' said a bank official involved in the rollout of e-CNY for the Shanghai trial, under the guidance of China's central bank.

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The banks are persuading merchant and retail clients to download digital wallets so that transactions during the pilot programme can be made directly in digital yuan, bypassing the ubiquitous payment plumbing laid by tech giants Ant Group, an affiliate of Alibaba, and Tencent. SHANGHAI: In China's commercial hub Shanghai, six big state banks are quietly promoting digital yuan ahead of a May 5 shopping festival, carrying out a political mandate to provide consumers with a payment alternative to Alipay and WeChat Pay.