Banking giant DBS said it has rolled out a new offering in China, enabling its corporate clients to collect central bank digital currency (CBDC) payments and enjoy automated digital yuan (e-CNY) settlements. The move comes as DBS seeks to help local businesses in China to address the growing consumer usage and adoption of digital Yuan.

What Does DBS’s New Platform Offer?

DBS, the largest bank in Southeast Asia by assets, announced on Wednesday it has launched a platform in China that allows its clients to collect payments in digital yuan, the country’s CBDC. In addition, the solution also enables automated settlements of e-CNY directly into users’ digital yuan deposit accounts.

In the press release, DBS stated it was one of the first international banks to launch such a product in China. It offers multiple advantages, such as allowing businesses to collect CBDC payments “without having to go through the manual settlement process.”

It also lets users take advantage of “e-CNY’s unique capabilities for businesses to receive payments digitally in underserved regions with limited internet connectivity” and provide “consolidated merchant reports with itemized e-CNY transactions,” the bank wrote.

China Continues to Lead the CBDC Race

The DBS’s latest product comes amid the rapidly-growing usage of digital yuan in China since its pilot launch in April 2020. As of December 2022, more than 13.6 billion e-CNY were in circulation, with the digital currency currently being used across 26 cities and 17 provinces in China.

Today, China is one of the frontrunners in the competitive CBDC market after making significant strides in this field in recent years. For instance, the Chinese government has been providing e-CNY loans to local businesses and individuals, boosting the CBDC adoption in the country and expanding its oversight over firms operating there.

More recently, the Chinese super app WeChat, which is used by over 1.2 billion users, also added support for digital yuan payments earlier this year through its WeChat Pay feature. The single transaction limit for CBDC payments is currently set at 2,000 yuan ($289), while the daily limit is 5,000 yuan.

Meanwhile, several other global central banks have joined the CBDC race recently, including Japan, Brazil, and India, among others. In April, the government of Montenegro joined forces with Ripple to develop a national CBDC pilot.

This article originally appeared on The Tokenist

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