Central Bank Announces! 12 New Digital RMB Service Operating Institutions Added

[Overview] China’s central bank adds 12 digital renminbi business operation institutions

By Zhang Ling, China Securities Journal

The latest expansion of digital renminbi business operation institutions brings the total to 22.

On April 2, the central bank said in a statement that, to implement the “15th Five-Year Plan” outline’s decision to “steadily develop the digital renminbi,” further enhance the inclusiveness of digital renminbi services, and continuously respond to the public’s demand for secure, convenient, and efficient digital renminbi services, it will add CITIC Bank, China Everbright Bank, Huaxia Bank, China Minsheng Bank, 广发银行, 浦发银行, 浙江商银行, 宁波银行, 江苏银行, 北京银行, 南京银行, and 苏州银行 as bank-type digital renminbi business operation institutions, and connect them to the central bank-side digital renminbi system. After the newly added institutions complete their business and technical preparations, they will start providing digital renminbi services.

The central bank said that the next step will be to orderly advance the expansion of operation institutions according to the principles of market-oriented and rule-of-law approaches, further stimulate the enthusiasm and creativity of market entities, and build a digital renminbi development environment that is open and inclusive and supports fair competition.

Beneficial for enriching the digital renminbi ecosystem

Enhance service capability

Before this, there were 10 designated domestic digital renminbi operation institutions. In addition to six state-owned large banks, there were also two joint-stock banks, China Merchants Bank and Industrial Bank, as well as two internet banks, WeBank and MYbank.

Interviewees believe that the addition of 12 bank-type digital renminbi business operation institutions will help enrich the digital renminbi ecosystem and improve service capabilities.

“Digital renminbi adopts a ‘central bank—operation institution’ two-tier architecture. Previously, only a small number of institutions such as ICBC, ABC, BOC, CCB, BComm, Postal Savings Bank, and CMB were operation institutions. This expansion incorporates some joint-stock commercial banks and leading city commercial banks into the framework, which is timely and necessary.” Dong Ximiao, chief economist of Zhoulian, and deputy director of the Shanghai Finance and Development Laboratory, said that these joint-stock banks and city commercial banks have a large customer base, resources for local government affairs cooperation, and differentiated service capabilities. Their inclusion helps improve the digital renminbi two-tier operating architecture, thereby forming a richer ecosystem.

Tian Lihui, a professor of finance at Nankai University, said that this expansion brings in national joint-stock players such as CITIC and Everbright, as well as five leading city commercial banks, with far-reaching significance. On the one hand, from the perspective of financial structure, joint-stock banks and city commercial banks’ deep involvement extends the digital renminbi issuance layer beyond state-owned large banks into a broader network of smaller and medium-sized banks. This is conducive to building a multi-tier liquidity allocation and conversion system and significantly enhancing the inclusiveness and resilience of the payment system. On the other hand, from the perspective of the competitive landscape, the differentiated scenarios and customer resources of new participants can activate service innovation at both the retail end and the industrial chain end, accelerating digital renminbi’s leap from being “usable” to being “good to use and loved to use.” This lays out a denser and more energetic market track for the full circulation of legal digital currency.

Dong Ximiao also said that developing digital renminbi services is a comprehensive upgrade for operation institutions, involving technical capabilities, business models, and organizational coordination.

“In the short term, it is system connection and scenario building; in the medium term, it is ecosystem operation and value conversion; and in the long term, it is a strategic layout deeply integrated with digital financial infrastructure.” Dong Ximiao noted that commercial banks need to systematically advance across areas such as strategic perception, capability building, deep cultivation of scenarios, and organizational transformation.

Broad prospects for future development

As the next-generation financial infrastructure approved by the State Council and implemented under the lead of the People’s Bank of China, digital renminbi has developed rapidly in recent years.

According to data from the central bank, as of the end of November 2025, 230 million personal wallets had been opened through the digital renminbi App, and 18.84 million digital renminbi unit wallets had been opened. The multi-lateral central bank digital currency bridge (mBridge) had cumulatively processed 4,047 cross-border payment transactions, with a cumulative transaction amount equivalent to RMB 387.2 billion.

On January 1 of this year, the “Action Plan on Further Strengthening the Digital Renminbi Management and Service System and Related Financial Infrastructure Construction” began implementation. The plan clarifies the measurement framework, management system, operating mechanism, and ecosystem for the new generation of digital renminbi, marking that digital renminbi has officially entered the “2.0 era.” Interviewees believe that digital renminbi has broad development prospects.

Tian Lihui said that digital renminbi is upgrading from a retail payment tool to a public financial infrastructure in the digital economy era. In large-scale adoption, smart contracts will first enable “end-to-end” applications in scenarios with high requirements for trust and automation, such as pre-funded fund supervision, fiscal subsidies, and supply chain finance, forming a replicable business closed loop. At the same time, application scenarios will show two major trends: first, they will develop deeper into the B end and G end, becoming a “value pipeline” for industrial digitalization and digital governance; second, cross-border payments, relying on the multi-lateral central bank digital currency bridge, are expected to achieve point-to-point, low-cost real-time settlement in trade settlement, pushing the internationalization of the renminbi from pipeline-style breakthroughs toward systematic embedding.

Lou Feipeng, a researcher at Postal Savings Bank of China, said that in the future, digital renminbi will continue to deepen in scenarios such as corporate-to-corporate business, cross-border settlement, and fiscal subsidies. Technical standards and regulatory frameworks will also be improved in parallel. With the maturity of the multi-lateral central bank digital currency bridge, digital renminbi is expected to become an important global high-efficiency cross-border payment infrastructure.

(Source: China Fund News)