Chinese investors have poured over $188 million into firms working on the digital yuan following the People’s Bank of China’s decision to let central bank digital currency wallets accrue interest.
Almost a third of that investment went into Lakala, a third-party payment service provider that works with merchant acceptance solutions and hardware wallets, reported the Chinese outlet Securities Times.
The firm’s share price rose by over 12% on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Monday and continued rising on December 30.
The central bank’s move to allow state-issued digital currencies to earn interest is a “win-win situation for all parties,” an unnamed Chinese financial expert told China’s Shanghai Securities News.
“Enterprises and individuals will receive interest income and enjoy a wider variety of financial products and services. And commercial banks will receive incentives for conducting digital yuan business,” the expert said.
The PBoC says its new action plan covers the period from 2026 to 2030. 2026-30.
As of January 1, 2026, the PBoC said, “banks can independently manage the assets and liabilities of their digital yuan wallet balances.”
Almost a year after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning federal agencies from issuing or endorsing CBDCs, China is trying to breathe new life into its digital yuan project, first unveiled in 2020, vaunting its domestic and cross-border applications.
Earlier this month, a state-owned bank used a private blockchain network to issue $600 million in commercial bonds to buyers who pay in digital yuan.
According to the Chinese state-run media outlet Global Times, the PBoC says cumulative transactions using the digital yuan reached $2.38 trillion at the end of November.
The bank said a total of 3.48 billion CBDC transactions have been processed to date, with 230 million people opening personal wallets.
Hard wallet hopes
Share prices in a range of other digital yuan-related companies also soared by over 10% in Shenzhen on Monday.
These included Hengbao, Cuiwei, ST Rendong, Wuhan Tianyu, and iSoftStone, all companies that work with the PBoC on CBDC-related solutions.
Many of these firms work with hardware or offline wallets, wearable or plastic credit card-type wallet solutions.
The PBoC envisages these wallets as playing a key role in adoption.
While most of China’s young and urban population use smartphones and have bank accounts, millions of Chinese remain unbanked, with millions more not connected to the internet.
The wallets, already in deployment in the CBDC pilot zone, function offline in areas without internet access.
They automatically update balances when they come into contact with internet-connected point-of-sale devices or train station ticket barriers.
They have also been designed to let overseas visitors use the digital yuan, with Beijing offering international sports stars and global media representatives the chance to use the CBDC for the first time during the 2022 Winter Olympics.
