People's republic of china is not launching a war on cash past introducing its own digital currency, a senior official from the key bank has said.

As Reuters reported on November. 12 quoting Mu Changchun, head of the digital currency research plant at the People'south Banking company of China (PBoC), Beijing yet intends for the new currency to complement the paper yuan.

PBoC "knows" public wants notes and coins

Mu was speaking at a conference in Singapore, as speculation swirls the digital currency could appear within the side by side three months. Prc would be one of the get-go countries in the world to upshot a domestic digital currency, forth with Tunisia.

"We know the demand from the general public is to go along anonymity by using paper money and coins… we will give those people who demand information technology anonymity in their transactions," Mu explained. He connected:

"But at the same time nosotros will keep the balance between the 'controllable anonymity' and anti-money laundering, CTF (counter terrorist financing), and also tax bug, online gambling and any electronic criminal activities. That is a balance nosotros have to keep, and that is our goal."

No war on cash?

People's republic of china already employs strict monitoring of the fiscal sphere. The use of pop mobile payment operators such as WeChat Pay and Alipay requires extensive personal information, and until recently was only available to those with a Chinese bank account.

Mu'due south comments build on previous moves from the PBoC to protect cash. In July, it announced a crackdown on merchants refusing to accept paper fiat.

Yet, Mu appeared slap-up to state that digital currency did not imply increased control of user data, despite the ease of aggregation of such information with digital transactions.

"Nosotros are not seeking full control of the information of the general public," he added.

Other attempts to digitize previously cash-based transactions take met with much criticism. In India, where the government is conversely attempting to limit greenbacks usage since 2016, spectators have voiced alarm at a scheme to necktie replacement digital transactions to consumers' real identities.