SHANGHAI: China’s central bank is issuing 10 million yuan (US$1.5 million) worth of digital currency to 50,000 randomly selected consumers in the country’s first public test of a digital yuan payment system.
The campaign by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) comes as central banks worldwide race to issue digital currencies to modernise payment systems, as well as to fend off potential competition from privately issued cryptocurrencies.
Starting Friday, individuals in the southern city of Shenzhen were invited to join the program through the country’s Big Four banks. But only some will be awarded a 200-yuan “red envelope” via a lottery, according to the local government and the lenders. Read more…..
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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell delivers his latest views on the economy Tuesday morning to a virtual gathering of the National Association for Business Economics. The topic of the speech is “Global Reset? Economics, Business and Policy in the Pandemic” and comes amid a change in Fed policy that will keep short-term interest rates anchored near zero for years.
