China announced that verified e-CNY wallets will receive 0.05% annual interest, with accrual beginning January 1, 2026 and first quarterly payments disbursed in March 2026. The People's Bank of China introduced the measure to boost adoption of the digital yuan among users who had registered wallets but remained inactive.
Scale
The e-CNY pilot has expanded to 26 regions, with cumulative transactions reaching CNY 19.5 trillion (approximately $2.8 trillion), 230 million individual wallets, and 19 million business wallets. These figures make the e-CNY by far the world's largest CBDC deployment - orders of magnitude ahead of any other central bank digital currency project.
Interest-Bearing CBDC Precedent
Paying interest on CBDC is a first among major economies and blurs the line between digital currency and deposit accounts. At 0.05%, the rate is deliberately low - designed to incentivise wallet activation without competing with commercial bank deposits. The ECB has explicitly stated the digital euro will not be interest-bearing, making the Chinese approach a distinctive design choice.
mBridge Market leadership
On the BIS-backed mBridge cross-border CBDC platform, the e-CNY accounts for over 95% of settlement volume (approximately $55.5 billion). The BIS has "graduated" from the project, handing governance to participating central banks - raising questions about the platform's geopolitical alignment.
What This Means
China is extending its lead in CBDC deployment while other major economies remain in preparation phases. The interest-bearing feature could significantly boost active usage of dormant wallets, though the 0.05% rate is unlikely to attract deposits away from commercial banks. For global payment infrastructure, the e-CNY's mBridge market leadership positions China to shape cross-border CBDC settlement standards.
Sources: Bloomberg, The Paypers