PBoC governor says digital yuan's pilot has done 4M transactions so far with $300M

The testing phase of China's central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiative has so far conducted 4 million transactions, according to Yi Gang, the governor of the People's Bank of China (PBoC).

Yi spoke virtually at the Hong Kong Fintech Week event on Monday and said the testing has been running smoothly across four cities in China with 4 million transactions conducted involving over 2 billion yuan, or $300 million.

Yi said China's central bank digital currency, also known as DC/EP, is at its early stage and still needs a more comprehensive legal framework. He added that the PBoC will initiate more discussions with overseas central banks and regulatory bodies focusing on the legal frameworks for CBDCs.

Last month, the PBoC published a draft revision to the current central banking law, which seeks to legalize the status of Renminbi in a digital form and prohibit the issuance of any other form of digital tokens that aim to replace the circulation of Renminbi.

Major state-owned commercial banks in China have started the tests for DC/EP among merchants in Chengdu, Suzhou, Shenzhen and Xiong'An, since earlier this year. 

Last month, the local government in Shenzhen ran a larger scale of test where it gave away about $1.5 million in DC/EP to 50,000 local residents to let them test it out.