China has moved to take the digital yuan beyond its borders. At the 2025 Lujiazui Forum, People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng said the central bank will set up an international operations center for the e CNY in Shanghai. The goal is to make cross border payments faster, safer, and less dependent on U.S. dollar rails.
Officials framed the hub, described as a “Digital RMB Cross border Interconnection and Interoperability Center,” as core infrastructure for international use cases. It will support new financial market services built on the digital yuan and connect to overseas participants.
The announcement came in a package of measures aimed at strengthening Shanghai’s role as a global finance hub. These include steps around FX futures, offshore markets, and digital finance pilots.
Why this matters for crypto and stablecoin markets
For years, China’s CBDC has been advanced in tech but limited in domestic uptake, where Alipay and WeChat Pay control well over 90% of mobile payments. That dominance has made it hard for the e CNY to gain day to day share inside China.
The new Shanghai hub pivots the focus outward, targeting trade, wholesale settlement, and cross border flows where a CBDC can offer real time, on chain clearing with central bank money.
The move also fits China’s multi polar currency push. Alongside the e CNY, Beijing has promoted the yuan’s Cross Border Interbank Payment System, CIPS, and backed Project mBridge, a multi CBDC platform with Hong Kong, Thailand, the UAE, and others.
mBridge reached an MVP stage in 2024 after pilots of real value CBDC transfers. A dedicated e CNY hub in Shanghai could slot into this stack, giving banks and corporates a more direct path to RMB settlement without long correspondent chains.
There are already live cross border retail touchpoints. Hong Kong allows residents to open e CNY wallets and spend at local shops, a stepping stone for tourism and small merchant acceptance. As the operational center comes online, expect these pilots to expand and tighten links between the mainland and offshore RMB markets.
Adoption status and the road ahead
Official and academic tallies suggest cumulative e CNY transactions surpassed 7.3 trillion yuan by mid 2024, with around 180 million wallets opened across pilot regions. Those are large totals in absolute terms, though they remain a small share of China’s overall payments volume dominated by private wallets.
The international center is meant to change the growth curve by focusing on high value B2B trade, wholesale settlement, and programmable finance use cases. This is where CBDC features such as atomic delivery versus payment and payment versus payment, time bound liquidity, and policy tooling matter most.
The messaging at Lujiazui underscores that the push is strategic, not just technical. Officials argued current cross border systems are costly and politically exposed, and that digital infrastructures can lower friction and broaden currency choices. Several foreign banks have recently linked to CIPS, which complements any CBDC rails China deploys.
For crypto markets, that means more competition for dollar denominated stablecoins in trade settlement, especially across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, plus potential interoperability experiments between CBDCs and permissioned token networks.
