Major Food Chains to be Among Testers of China’s New Digital Currency

[mlawson71]

China has been developing a digital yuan for quite a while now – since 2014. Recently that development entered a new stage as the country is planning for the digitial currency to be tested by major food chains like Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Subway.
A meeting was organized by the development and reform bureau of Xiong’an New Area management committee and in it participated certain cryptocurrency research institutions and  pilot merchants. Among the latter were representatives of the abovementioned major food chains, plus a representative of he popular Chinese dumpling eatery chain Qing-Feng Baozi.    
The other present parties, members of four large Xiongan banks - the Agricultural Bank of China, the Bank of China, the China Construction Bank, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China – were there to discuss the testing of the digital yuan.
China seems to be planning to launch the cryptocurrency in mid-2021.
Source
I have little doubt that the pandemic and the need for wide-scale contactless payment have further spurred them to implement this.