CBDC Round-Up

China’s e-CNY Competes with Visa at the Olympics

The Beijing Winter Olympics has seen a third payment option be used at an Olympic Games for the first time since 1986 (when Visa got became the exclusive payment service provider alongside cash). China’s CBDC, the e-CNY, is being used within the ‘Olympic bubble’, the quarantine area for all athletes, officials, media and visitors to the Olympics.

For the end users in the bubble, e-CNY payments are indistinguishable from paying with a prepayment card at the point of sale. Using e-CNY is cheaper than paying with Visa because there are no fees for using e-CNY in China. The usual processing fee for international payments is not required at the point of sale, although loading the value onto the app will have incurred a cost for foreign visitors.