China Retailer JD.com Pays Employee Salary in Digital Yuan

Since the beginning of this year, JD.com has been paying salaries to a portion of its employees using China’s Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP).

The e-commerce company disclosed the info while informing its participation in the twelve month DCEP trial event at the Digital China Summit, the fourth of its kind in Fuzhou, scheduled for April 25 and 26.

Speaking about the digital yuan adoption program, JD.com stated that the DCEP platform was used not only for paying the salaries of employees but also for b2b (business-to-business) payments to associate firms, in addition to inter-bank settlements.

JD Technology and Digital Currency Research Institute, the fintech division of the firm, has been DCEP advancement associate with the People’s Bank of China since September last year.

Last December, the online retail firm started accepting the digital yuan as a mode of payment on its website. JD.com accepted nearly 20,000 DCEP platform based orders in the initial week of adoption. JD has also assisted DCEP trials, pouring in roughly $4.60 million to Suzhou’s second public lottery program in February.

With respect to the ongoing support for the CBDC i.e., digital yuan, Fei Peng, the DCEP chief at JD Tech stated “JD Technology will continue to combine strengths in the supply chain, omnichannel scenarios, advanced technology, and client service experience to contribute more to the DC/EP ecosystem.”

In the meantime, JD’s ongoing assistance for the digital yuan has brought to limelight the absence of AliPay and WeChat Pay in numerous DECP trials. Starting with ride-hailing facilities such as DiDi Chuxing to real-time platforms like Bilibili, numerous companies have taken part in trial of the country’s CBDC barring the aforesaid large payment processors.

Views of experts remain mixed on the issue of whether DCEP will compete with the duo AliPay and WeChat Pay in the country’s digital payment market. Last October, Zhou Xiaochuan, an ex-PBoC governor, stressed that the digital yuan was the central bank’s answer to the hegemony.