The Chinese central bank is “quite worried” about the global financial risks associated with digital currencies, particularly stablecoins, according to a senior official. Fan Yifei, a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), expressed concerns over the reportedly serious threat stablecoins, such as Tether (USDT), pose to global financial and settlement systems, CNBC reported on Thursday. The official emphasized that the speed of development in private payments systems is “very alarming,” and the PBoC is working against monopolies and the “disorderly expansion of capital,” adding: “Some commercial organizations’ so-called stablecoins, especially global stablecoins, may bring risks and challenges …

Major Chinese technology and commerce firms are starting to open up regarding their involvement in developing the digital yuan. Ant Group and Tencent Holdings revealed the extent of their collaboration with the People’s Bank of China in developing the digital yuan at the Digital China Summit, an annual trade fair in the city of Fuzhou in southeastern Fujian province. According to the South China Morning Post, Ant Group started working with the PBoC on the digital yuan in 2017, years before China officially debuted digital currency pilots in 2020. In June 2019, China’s digital currency institute reportedly used Ant’s mobile …

Some of China’s largest state banks are actively promoting the digital yuan as a superior means of payment to the country’s two leading payment providers, Alipay and WeChat Pay. In a Monday report, Reuters revealed that six of China’s largest banks are promoting China’s nascent central bank-issued digital currency, or CBDC, in Shanghai ahead of an online shopping festival on May 5. The banks are urging retail outlets and consumers to download the digital wallet and make purchases using the CBDC, also known as e-CNY. This would bypass the current payment methods of choice for millions of shoppers, Ant Group’s …

China’s central bank digital currency, or CBDC, will provide backup for major retail payment services like AliPay and WeChat Pay as its key objective, according to an official at the People’s Bank of China. Mu Changchun, head of the People’s Bank of China’s digital currency research institute, claimed that China’s digital yuan is needed to ensure financial stability in case “something happens” to AliPay or WeChat Pay, the South China Morning Post reports. Speaking at an online panel discussion on Thursday, Mu stated that Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay account for 98% of the mobile payment market in China, …

Chinese holding conglomerate Ping An Group filed the largest number of blockchain-related patents in 2020, according to a new report. Intellectual property-focused magazine Intellectual Asset Management has released a report on the rankings of the world’s foremost blockchain patentees. Based on data from the Derwent World Patents Index, the rankings show that Ping An filed 1,215 blockchain patent families in 2020, more than Tencent and Ant Group combined. Owning a total of 1,749 blockchain patent families, Ping An sharply increased its number of patent applications in 2020, up from just 291 in 2019. Based in Shenzhen, Ping An operates a …

For the past several years, the trade war between China and the U.S. has been at the center of international relations, with technology playing an outsized role. Within crypto, advancing interest in central bank digital currencies has become part of that narrative of geopolitical competition. Many have framed the development of CBDCs in China and the U.S. as a race — in which case, China is clearly closer to launch and, hence, the “winner.” But a race to the finish is a flawed paradigm, and one to which Cointelegraph has contributed its fair share. For the moment, China is actively …

Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Editor's note A wise man once said, "there's security and there're securities," and if he didn't, he should've. In modern English, it seems a quaint coincidence that the word "security" refers to both safety and a broad class of investments. But as pending arguments about, say, meme-propelled trading in securities are set to take place in forums reserved for national security, it's a good reminder that money precedes weapons as vehicles for national power. In some sense, it's obvious that financial …

China has finalized new guidelines to aid in antitrust battle against tech giants. On Feb. 7, the State Administration for Market Regulation released finalized rules for its anti-monopoly push against e-commerce and payments giants like Alibaba, Ant Group and Tencent. The guidance specifically addresses "operators that provide business premises, transaction matching, information exchange and other Internet platform services." It builds on a host of recent efforts by both the SAMR and the People's Bank of China to rein in the broader tech industry, specifically targeting payments platforms as the country continues to push forward its own central bank digital currency. …

Ant Group, the financial affiliate of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba, has reportedly reached an agreement with Chinese regulators over the company's status. According to a Feb. 3 report by Bloomberg, Chinese regulators have agreed on a restructuring plan that will turn Jack Ma’s fintech giant into a financial holding company. Ant Group’s new status will reportedly make it subject to capital requirements similar to those for Chinese banks. The agreement will impact a wide scope of Ant’s business operations, including its technology offerings in areas like blockchain and food delivery, unnamed sources told Bloomberg. According to the report, the restructuring …

Jack Ma, the founder of Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba, has made his first public appearance since October, bringing almost three months of intense speculation about his possible whereabouts to a close. In a new video clip published online on Jan. 20, Ma was reportedly shown visiting a school rebuilt by his foundation — a glimpse that was enough to spur Alibaba's Hong Kong-traded shares to rise by almost 9%. Investors' momentary reassurance follows months of inscrutable actions from the Chinese state to reassert control over one of the country's wealthiest figures, whose conglomerate provides over 70% of China's citizens with …

With just two weeks left in office, President Donald Trump has sent out a new executive order targeting Chinese payment apps. The Tuesday order bars United States citizens or people located in the U.S. from using nine Chinese payment apps. It continues the White House's earlier efforts to cut off the U.S. market from Chinese-owned apps like TikTok. Yesterday's order repeats earlier concerns of data collection by the Chinese Communist Party: "The continuing activity of the PRC and the CCP to steal or otherwise obtain United States persons’ data makes clear that there is an intent to use bulk data …

Jack Ma, the now-retired founder of Alibaba Group, recently spoke to a crowd of bankers and regulators at the Bund Summit in Shanghai about the role digital currencies will likely play in the future global financial system: “Digital currency could create value and we should think about how to establish a new type of financial system through digital currency.” He opined that the current financial system governed by Basel Accords is too conservative and does not fit China’s growing economy: “After the Asian financial crisis, the risk control highlighted in the Basel Accords has been only focused on risk control, …