The People’s Bank of China has recently launched a trial version of their digital currency which they hope will reduce the dominance of Alibaba and Tencent; “It is about the role of a digital currency for domestic retail use,” said a senior executive at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority familiar with the thinking at the PBoC to the FT. “They want a more level playing field for the banks. Retail payments are so dominated by Alibaba and Tencent while banks are less active in electronic payments.”; Alipay accounted for more than 55 percent of mobile payments in Q1 according to Beijing-based iResearch; the government allowed for the payments companies to gain so much dominance that many banks complained, now they are finding it hard to limit their impact; the PBoC hopes the new digital currency will take off so they can eventually erode the dollar’s global position. Financial Times.
