Agricultural Bank Of China Tests App For Country’s Digital Currency

One of China’s state-owned banks has a mobile test app that supports the country’s central bank digital currency, according to a CoinDesk report.

Screenshots of an app developed by the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) for mobile phones was spotted on WeChat Tuesday (April 14). It was later verified by the New York-based news service that specializes in bitcoin and digital currencies, and shows the bank has developed a way users can link to China’s central bank digital currency.

Testing the app is a sign the giant lender is working to launch the development and deployment work of rolling out the nation’s digital currency, the report said.

Last year, CoinDesk reported the People’s Bank of China had been developing the system with the involvement of the country’s four big state-owned banks as well as payments giants Ant Financial and Tencent.

TheBlockCrypto.com, a research, analysis and news brand in covering the global cryptocurrency, said it obtained a web link that allowed users to download a payments app issued by the ABC.

The app displays the new digital currency features, such as digital currency exchange, wallet management, transaction tracking, and connecting other wallets, the New York company wrote.

These features, the report said, are unavailable to the public for now.

The Block’s effort to register an account in the app to examine the features failed, according to the report. An error message said an account cannot be created because the personal information provided does not match with the “white list” of approved users for the test.

In January, China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), said it had completed the “top-level” design of its proposed digital currency.

“We will continue to steadily advance the development of legal digital currencies” this year, the PBOC said at the time.