Event Overview

The People's Bank of China recently clarified that it will introduce the "Action Plan for Further Strengthening the Management Service System of Digital Renminbi and Related Financial Infrastructure Construction," with the new generation of digital renminbi measurement framework, management system, operational mechanism, and ecological system officially starting implementation on January 1, 2026. This means that digital renminbi will transition from the initial pilot and technical verification stage to a new phase characterized by institutionalized and normalized operations. According to public data, by the end of November 2025, digital renminbi had processed a total of 3.48 billion transactions, with a transaction amount of approximately 16.7 trillion yuan, 230 million personal wallets opened, and 18.84 million corporate wallets opened, forming a substantial retail and corporate usage base. In terms of cross-border payments, the multilateral central bank digital currency bridge project has processed 4,047 cross-border payments, with a transaction amount equivalent to 387.2 billion yuan, of which the digital renminbi transaction amount accounts for about 95.3%, demonstrating its dominant position in multilateral pilots. This round of action plan is closely tied to cross-border payment and financial infrastructure upgrades, viewed by the market as a comprehensive institutional construction that complements the CIPS 2.0 era, focusing on two main lines: first, the "reconstruction" of the digital renminbi's monetary attributes, transitioning from a pilot tool to a mature currency form with commercial bank liability attributes; second, incorporating digital renminbi into the long-term design of the internationalization of the renminbi and regional settlement system through cross-border payment infrastructure.

Institutional Framework

From public statements, the new generation of digital renminbi measurement framework, management system, operational mechanism, and ecological system is positioned as a systematic abstraction and top-level design upgrade of existing pilot experiences. Its goal is no longer just "usable and easy to use," but to build a complete institutional closed loop covering account systems, clearing systems, compliance governance, and ecological collaboration. Lu Lei, Deputy Governor of the People's Bank of China, recently pointed out that the future digital renminbi will be supported by the central bank's technology and regulatory implementation, possessing commercial bank liability attributes, issued and circulated within the financial system. This statement implies that the digital renminbi will be issued under the central bank's coordination through operational institutions such as commercial banks, based on accounts, compatible with distributed ledger technology, reflecting a "dual-track compatible design" of "account-based + value-based": supporting traditional account bookkeeping models while retaining a value-based form closer to "digital cash," adaptable to different scenarios and stakeholder needs. In terms of the division of responsibilities for issuance and regulation, the central bank is responsible for technical standards, core platforms, and prudent regulation, while commercial banks and other institutions undertake specific operations, wallet management, and scenario expansion, maintaining continuity in the existing financial system structure. Compared to the earlier phase focused on city pilots and scenario implementation, the core difference in this action plan lies in the completeness of the system and the leap in promotion goals—from decentralized pilot rules to a nationally unified measurement and management framework, transitioning from "verifying feasibility" to "supporting overall promotion," laying the rule foundation for subsequent large-scale applications in retail, government affairs, and cross-border areas.

Data Profile

From the data perspective, by the end of November 2025, the digital renminbi had processed a total of 3.48 billion transactions, with a transaction amount reaching 16.7 trillion yuan, achieving a leap from small-scale pilots to large-scale usage in just a few years, indicating that it has already "run well and is usable" in daily payments and public fee payments in retail scenarios. On the wallet side, the number of personal wallets reached 230 million, and corporate wallets reached 18.84 million, reflecting the gradual acceptance and embedded use of this new payment tool by residents and enterprises. The digital renminbi is no longer an "experimental project" but has penetrated some high-frequency payment links. In the cross-border dimension, the multilateral central bank digital currency bridge has processed 4,047 cross-border payments, with a transaction amount equivalent to 387.2 billion yuan, of which about 95.3% of the transaction amount is contributed by the digital renminbi, showing its absolute dominance in the existing multilateral pilot system. Meanwhile, market opinion links this cross-border data with CIPS 2.0 and the upgrade of cross-border payment rules, believing that the digital renminbi is gradually increasing its optionality in regional trade settlement and fund clearing through its coupling with cross-border payment infrastructure. Overall, based on key indicators such as transaction scale, wallet numbers, and the proportion of cross-border pilots, the current stage of the digital renminbi can be summarized as: the domestic "internal circulation" field has achieved "usability" and possesses certain network effects, while in the "external circulation" cross-border payment aspect, it is in the initial stage of "initial scale but still pilot-dominated," not yet fully evolved into a mature international settlement currency form.

Policy Coordination

If we extend the timeline to the past year, we can see that the digital renminbi action plan is not introduced in isolation but forms a high-frequency "combination punch" with the internationalization of the digital renminbi, the upgrade of the renminbi cross-border payment system (CIPS), and the optimization of multilateral cross-border payment rules. Recent initiatives surrounding the advancement of the multilateral central bank digital currency bridge, pilot cooperation in places like Singapore, and gradually incorporating the digital currency research institute into the regulatory framework of the cross-border payment system are all paving the way for the implementation of the 2026 action plan. Additionally, the policy level continuously emphasizes the coordinated application of the digital renminbi with national strategies such as green finance, inclusive finance, and the construction of the new land-sea corridor in the west, for example, by improving fund flow tracking and payment efficiency to serve the financing needs of green projects, payment settlements for rural and small micro entities, and cross-regional logistics trade settlement needs. Concurrently, the "14th Five-Year Plan" suggests the comprehensive implementation of the "Artificial Intelligence +" initiative, and the Technology Department of the People's Bank of China has also proposed to actively and steadily promote the application of artificial intelligence in the financial sector, forming a response between financial digital transformation and digital renminbi infrastructure upgrades: on one hand, AI provides technical support for the large-scale application of digital renminbi in areas such as anti-money laundering, risk control, and intelligent risk control pricing; on the other hand, the programmability and high-frequency data of digital renminbi provide a richer analytical foundation for AI models. At the macro level, the combination of accommodative monetary policy tools and payment infrastructure construction, by maintaining reasonable and ample liquidity, optimizing interest rate transmission, along with a more efficient and transparent payment system, provides new leverage for financing the real economy and foreign exchange management, making the digital renminbi not only a payment tool but also one of the foundational platforms for macroeconomic regulation and cross-border fund supervision.

Bull-Bear Divergence

Regarding the digital renminbi action plan, the market and some KOLs generally lean towards positive expectations. Official voices such as Lu Lei emphasize that the digital renminbi possesses commercial bank liability attributes, capable of undertaking multiple functions such as monetary value measurement, value storage, and cross-border payments, with a core focus on meeting the needs of the real economy, which is interpreted as a dual reinforcement of the stability of the banking system and the functional system of the renminbi. Public opinion generally believes that combined with CIPS 2.0 and the multilateral digital currency bridge, it is expected to gradually enhance the usability and convenience of the renminbi in regional trade settlement and cross-border payment fields. However, the old controversies surrounding the digital renminbi have not disappeared; early market discussions raised concerns about "potential monitoring" or "bypassing SWIFT." However, from the currently available materials, this action plan has not introduced new content regarding data monitoring or geopolitical financial games, and official statements still revolve around serving the real economy, safety compliance, and financial stability, with related speculations remaining more at the level of old posts and external conjectures. Community sentiment is generally positive and neutral, with discussions primarily focused on sharing reports, and some investors exhibit initial FOMO emotions when discussing cross-border payment potential, but have not yet formed a large-scale emotional or asset market impact. This is partly because the digital renminbi essentially belongs to the digital form of fiat currency, differing from the pricing logic of crypto assets, and partly due to uncertainties regarding international acceptance, cross-border compliance coordination costs, and potential impacts on existing commercial bank payment, settlement, and intermediary business models. These constraints make the market cautious about claims of "reshaping the global payment landscape" in the short term, viewing it more as a medium- to long-term institutional variable.

Market Outlook

From a temporal perspective, after the launch of the new generation of digital renminbi system in January 2026, it is expected that domestically, there will be an acceleration towards more retail scenarios and government payments based on existing pilot foundations, such as public fee payments, tax payments, government subsidy distributions, and high-frequency livelihood consumption chains, with corresponding transaction numbers and wallet counts likely to further increase after the unification of institutional rules; cross-border pilots are likely to continue the rhythm of "limited cooperation + key channels," steadily expanding among multilateral bridge projects and certain regional trade partners, rather than a one-time comprehensive rollout. From a spatial perspective, supported by the multilateral currency bridge and CIPS 2.0, the path for the digital renminbi to participate in regional settlement may roughly follow a three-step approach: "pilot channel—regional trade circle—broader cross-border use": first achieving a higher proportion of settlements in digital renminbi in specific trade channels and cooperative regions, then gradually expanding coverage through mutual recognition of rules and infrastructure connectivity. Whether a stable regional clearing network can be formed depends on the regulatory framework of the cooperating parties, capital project management, and risk assessment of renminbi assets. From a technical perspective, as "Artificial Intelligence +" and distributed ledger technology develop in parallel, the digital renminbi wallet form is expected to evolve towards multi-end integration, coexistence of trusted hardware and software wallets, and support for finer-grained privacy protection, with risk control increasingly relying on AI-driven real-time monitoring and compliance review, while achieving a more refined balance between traceability and tiered privacy. For crypto assets and traditional financial markets, the improvement of the compliant digital currency system will strengthen the narrative of "centralization, fiat currency anchoring," creating repricing pressure on some stories of "decentralization as compliant alternatives"; however, it may also open up greater space for compliant stablecoins, on-chain bonds, and other assets by increasing user acceptance of digital asset forms and promoting more institutions to upgrade on-chain infrastructure, forming a multi-layered pattern of coexistence between "regulatory-friendly digital currencies" and "open public chain ecosystems."

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