McDonald’s, Starbucks, and other shops are going to take part in a trial of China’s central bank digital currency in the Xiong’An district.

It is expected that 19 restaurants and retail shops will take part in trials of China’s central bank digital currency in the Xiong’An district. McDonald’s, Starbucks, Subway, JD Supermarkets are said to be among them.

Recently, the cities of Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong’An, Chengdu started testing China’s Central Bank digital currency. According to the local media outlet InterChain Pulse, 19 restaurants, entertainment companies, and retail shops will help conduct the trial in Xiong’An district in Hebei province. Among them are McDonald’s, Starbucks, Subway, and JD Supermarkets. Such a decision was a result of the meeting that the Reformation and Development Commission, the reform and development bureau of the Xiong’an New Area management committee, organized. Several digital currency research and development institutions and pilot merchants participated as well.

It’s also expected that Xiongan branches of Chinese major commercial banks will also take part in the trial. Among those are the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China, the Bank of China, and the China Construction Bank.

Going into details of this process: in particular, they will be piloting a wallet app for digital currency. Moreover, the Agricultural Bank of China has even tested the DC/EP (digital currency/electronic payment) for the app.

Director of the Finance Research Centre at the Central University of Finance and Economics, Chen Bo, said:

“There will be two types of players in future trials, the banks and telecom companies. At present, the central bank is testing the software of DC/EP, and whether it will be combined with 5G and sim cards in the future needs to be discussed.”