Original Title: “Villagers Here Use Digital RMB ------ Investigation of the Digital RMB Characteristic Town in Laohetou, Anxin County”

Reporter: Cui Congcong

Everyone can spend cash, but how to use it after digitization has made many people curious about digital RMB. While many city dwellers are still curious about digital RMB, many villagers in Laohetou Town, Anxin County, have become proficient in using digital RMB. This is the digital RMB characteristic town in Xiong'an New Area.

As one of the first batch of pilot cities for digital RMB released by the central bank, Xiong'an New Area started the digital RMB pilot program at the end of 2019. With the increasing number of merchants accepting it and various discount and promotional activities being launched, digital RMB has gradually entered the lives of the residents in the new area.

To further expand the pilot scenarios for digital RMB, since August 2020, the Xiong'an New Area Management Committee, in conjunction with the Shijiazhuang Central Branch of the People's Bank of China, has guided the Postal Savings Bank of China to create the digital RMB characteristic town in Laohetou, Anxin County, based on the local characteristics of Xiong'an New Area. After the establishment of the Xiong'an New Area Business Management Department of the People's Bank of China, efforts have been made to promote the pilot work and strive to make the characteristic town a model for digital RMB.

How to enable villagers to use digital RMB proficiently? How to achieve full coverage of consumption scenarios for villagers? The reporter conducted an on-site investigation.

As long as there is a digital wallet on the phone, no internet is needed; just "tap" two phones together to transfer digital currency from one person's digital wallet to another.

On November 10, Li Changliu, a villager from Lijia Village in Laohetou Town, went to the Chengxin Supermarket in the town. He opened the "Digital RMB" APP to pay and participated in the activity promoted by the Postal Savings Bank of China, which offered a discount of 2 yuan for every 10 yuan spent, spending 4 yuan to buy a bottle of soy sauce.

"I also followed the trend and used digital RMB." Li Changliu told the reporter that bank staff helped him open a personal digital RMB wallet, and by using the digital RMB APP to pay, he could participate in discount activities every day, making shopping convenient and cheap.

A staff member from the Xiong'an New Area Business Management Department of the People's Bank of China described the usage scenario: as long as both of our phones have a digital RMB wallet, no internet is needed; just "tap" two phones together to transfer digital currency from one person's wallet to another.

Walking on the streets of the town center, the digital RMB characteristic town signposts guide the way, and the light boxes of the shops on both sides of the street are red and white. In addition to the store names, they also display the digital RMB logo. Upon entering the store, tables are set up with QR codes for Alipay, WeChat, and digital RMB for the public to choose their payment method.

As night falls, the digital RMB light boxes on both sides of the streets in Laohetou Town light up, decorating the entire street and creating an atmosphere filled with digital RMB elements.

Why was Laohetou Town chosen as a pilot for the digital RMB characteristic town? A relevant person in charge from the Xiong'an New Area Business Management Department of the People's Bank of China explained that Laohetou Town ranks first in economic level in Anxin County, with a generally high level of wealth among the people and a large population, making it highly receptive to the digital RMB pilot program. Additionally, local payment and settlement are predominantly cash-based, with a high demand for cash transactions, making the digital RMB pilot program able to meet the transaction needs of local villagers.

Gao Junxia, the head of the Postal Savings Bank of China Laohetou Town Branch, said that since the establishment of the characteristic town, the bank has actively organized personnel to promote it through village committee broadcasts, distributing informative materials to villagers, and providing on-site assistance to open accounts, quickly increasing the personal wallet activation rate. From August 2020 to November this year, over 19,500 personal wallets have been opened for the permanent residents of Laohetou Town, achieving a wallet coverage rate of 97.78% among the resident population, essentially realizing full coverage of digital RMB personal wallets for all villagers in the town.

Since the construction of the Laohetou digital RMB characteristic town began in August 2020, digital RMB has covered 27 administrative villages in Laohetou Town, and the characteristic town has begun to take shape.

On November 10, a customer was making a payment through the digital RMB APP at a supermarket in the digital RMB characteristic town of Laohetou, Anxin County. Photo by Li Jiaze, Hebei Daily Reporter.

General consumption scenarios for villagers have basically achieved full coverage.

With personal digital RMB wallets, the key is having places to spend them.

The reporter entered the Yijiaren mobile phone store in Laohetou Town, where the owner, Lin Haisheng, enthusiastically talked about the benefits of digital RMB. "WeChat and Alipay have daily limits; once exceeded, withdrawing requires a fee of about 0.2%. We are a retail store, and our income and expenses are frequent, so that limit is quickly exceeded, and the withdrawal fees are quite high. Digital RMB has no fees at all." Lin Haisheng said that digital RMB does not require binding any bank accounts for payment, while WeChat Pay and Alipay still require binding a bank card for payment and transfer.

"In the evening, when the digital RMB light boxes light up, villagers can see from afar that my store is still open." Li Xuezhi, the owner of Chengxin Supermarket, said with a smile that the bank helps promote his store for free, which is really nice.

Gao Junxia mentioned that while Lin Haisheng and Li Xuezhi now speak fluently about digital RMB, they were initially apprehensive when they first heard about it.

"Although Laohetou Town is somewhat wealthier than average villages, introducing the new concept of digital RMB to rural areas is actually a financial revolution. When it comes to money, villagers have a resistance." Gao Junxia said that after arriving in the village with colleagues, they first found the town government and village committee to train village officials, teaching a group of people first, and then encouraging the merchants and villagers in the entire village to understand and use digital RMB.

They compared and explained to the public the safety advantages of digital RMB as a national legal currency, as well as its benefits such as real-time transactions, no fees, and offline payments, providing guidance to merchants to enhance the coverage of digital RMB usage among them.

At the same time, they hung digital RMB merchant signs at merchant entrances, placed merchant payment codes, payment announcement devices, digital RMB town signposts, characteristic store signs, as well as roll-up banners and flyers, actively creating an atmosphere for usage, allowing villagers to become familiar with digital RMB in their daily lives.

"We have also conducted various promotional payment activities to enhance villagers' and merchants' consumption habits with digital RMB. For example, we organized various offline consumption lottery activities for personal wallet customers and merchants who have opened digital RMB payment functions, strengthening the transaction experience between villagers and merchants and increasing the activity rate of both parties' payment experiences." Gao Junxia said that the bank has conducted five consumption gift activities, provided over ten types of gifts, and held two discount activities, initially forming a digital RMB payment ecosystem in Laohetou Town.

Currently, Laohetou Town has achieved 233 digital RMB accepting merchants, covering 73.97% of the 315 key merchants in the town, with accepting merchants spanning the fields of dining, supermarkets, fruits and vegetables, clothing, maternal and child stores, and home appliances, achieving basic full coverage of general consumption scenarios for villagers.

Promoting digital RMB to support the development of the digital economy and smart cities.

On "Double Eleven" day, villager Ma Xiao'e received a digital RMB red envelope on the JD APP and used digital RMB to buy an electric oven on the JD APP to bake cakes for her daughter. "Buying groceries, dining out, and buying clothes, digital RMB can pay for everything, bringing a lot of fun and convenience to our lives!"

During a visit to the digital RMB characteristic town of Laohetou, the reporter found that compared to WeChat and Alipay, the usage stickiness of digital RMB is still relatively low.

"On one hand, digital RMB is just emerging, and public acceptance still requires some time; on the other hand, digital RMB is still in the pilot phase, and the institutional system is not yet perfect." A relevant person in charge from the Xiong'an New Area Business Management Department of the People's Bank of China said that for the situation where user stickiness is not high enough, they will guide various research institutions to adopt multiple payment incentives to encourage villagers to use digital RMB and cultivate the usage habits of villagers who have opened digital RMB.

How to attract villagers to develop a habit of using digital RMB through more innovative measures and application scenarios, and improve the system and mechanism for using digital RMB? This person in charge stated that they will implement the goals and requirements proposed in the "Implementation Plan for Deepening the Digital RMB Pilot Work in Hebei Xiong'an New Area," guiding banks to further deepen the construction of the Laohetou digital RMB characteristic town, achieving full coverage of personnel and merchants, and including all beneficial scenarios. At the same time, they will summarize the construction experience of the Laohetou digital RMB characteristic town and promote it in other villages and towns in Xiong'an New Area, increasing the coverage and usage rate of digital RMB, thereby driving rural development.

To support the development of smart cities in Xiong'an New Area, the Xiong'an New Area Business Management Department of the People's Bank of China will focus on further promoting the development of digital RMB in the new area from four aspects: in inclusive finance, promoting broader applications of digital RMB in education, healthcare, government services, and rail transit; in green cities, encouraging residents to live and travel green through the promotion of green points; in financial technology, advancing the full-scenario application of the "blockchain + digital RMB" payment model; and in smart cities, collaborating with the construction of the Internet of Things city in Xiong'an New Area to jointly build a digital and smart Xiong'an.

A relevant person in charge from the Xiong'an New Area Development and Reform Bureau stated that in the next step, Xiong'an New Area will promote the continuous increase of personal and corporate wallet openings and application scenarios for digital RMB throughout the new area according to overall planning and construction requirements, combining the digital RMB pilot with the planning and construction of the digital city and smart city in the new area, actively exploring deeper in new carriers, new scenarios, and new models of digital payment, accelerating the landing and transformation of innovative technological achievements such as digital RMB hardware wallets and embedded wearable devices, and creating a batch of pilot results with Xiong'an characteristics to support the development of the digital economy and smart cities in the new area.