Internet giant JD.com has been utilizing an electronic payment system built around China’s digital currency to pay wages to some of its employees since the beginning of this year.
In 2021, the company paid a portion of its employees’ wages with the digital yuan, state-owned crypto created by China, according to an announcement on the website. The firm also revealed its participation in a one-year digital yuan examination at the recent Digital China Summit.
JD.com said that in supplement to reimbursing salaries to employees, it also employed the state cryptocurrency for reimbursements with affiliates and for interbank agreements. In December, a Chinese e-commerce portal participated in assessing the state digital currency. As a part of the trials, 20,000 virtual yuan transactions were successfully conducted.
The company further donated around $4.5 million for the second virtual yuan lottery in Suzhou this February. Remarking on the company’s continuous backing for the virtual yuan, Fei Peng, who is the Test Leader at JD Tech stated:
“JD Technology will persist to assess supply chains, multi-channel scenarios, sophisticated technology and customer service to well support to the advancement of China’s digital currency-based digital payment structure.”
This week, another key company, Ant Group, a branch of the Alibaba Group, disclosed the magnitude of its partnership with the People’s Bank of China on the state-owned crypto. The firm has been collaborating with the watchdog since 2017. Furthermore, analysts believe the digital yuan is competing with Alipay and WeChat, as China’s biggest banks are vigorously advocating the state-owned cryptocurrency as a payment tool.
