Digital Yuan Ready for International Olympic Showcase at Beijing 2022 Games
China will allow overseas visitors from around the world to use its digital yuan for the first time at next month’s Winter Olympics, the central People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has confirmed.
The PBoC has been working toward a full or partial rollout in time for the games since 2020, when it first announced its intentions. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has somewhat dented the scale of these ambitions, with overseas spectators banned from attending.
However, scores of athletes and coaches are expected to arrive in the country in the coming days ahead of the opening ceremony on February 4 – and they will be invited to make use of the token while they stay in the country.
Bloomberg reported that visitors will be able to download a smartphone app or make use of “a physical card” – likely a version of a “hardware wallet” card tested in the country at an earlier stage of the digital yuan’s pilot.
A number of “convenience stores, cafes and other merchants inside the Olympic Village” in Beijing have been equipped with point of sale machines that accept digital yuan payment. Stores and other merchants in the parts of Beijing and Hebei Province that will host events will also be allowed to take e-CNY payments.
A manager of the operations team at the Olympic Village confirmed that Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay would not be accepted as payment methods inside the village, explaining:
“The only payment methods are renminbi cash, Visa cards and the digital yuan at all of the competition and non-competition venues during the Olympics.”
And it appears that athletes will get constant reminders of the availability of the token. Bloomberg reported that “on a recent morning at one of [a commercial bank’s] branches in the Olympic Village
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