中国将从2026年1月1日起，对其官方数位货币数位人民币（E-CNY）开始付息：由运营数位人民币钱包的商业银行，依客户持有的虚拟货币金额计息。此举被描述为在约十年的研发与测试后，透过赋予其与商业银行存款相同的法律地位，重塑数位人民币的法律与技术框架；该项目由央行于2014年启动。

推广仍面临阻力：E-CNY已在中国大陆超过半数省份试点，但尚未全国正式上线，且在微信支付与支付宝等成熟平台竞争下，使用黏著度不足。跨境雄心亦受挫：多边跨境支付平台mBridge在约一年前遭遇回撤，国际清算银行（BIS）于2024年10月31日前后退出，外界担忧该系统可能被用于规避对俄制裁并削弱美元。

付息能否显著提升采用率仍不明朗，因在多年降息后，中国大型银行活期存款利率已降至0.05%。同时，居民储蓄上升使存款规模偏大，而贷款增速降至纪录低位；央行近期加速推进：2025年9月在上海设立数位人民币运营中心，2025年10月在下一个五年规划中提出“稳妥发展”。截至2025年11月底，累计处理数位人民币交易34.8亿笔、金额16.7万亿元（约2.38兆美元）。

Starting Jan. 1, 2026, China will pay interest on its official digital currency, the e-CNY: commercial banks running e-CNY wallets will calculate interest based on clients’ holdings. After roughly a decade of development and testing, the policy would rework the digital yuan’s legal/technical framework by granting it the same legal status as commercial-bank deposits; the project began in 2014.

Adoption has lagged despite pilots in more than half of mainland provinces and no full nationwide launch, as WeChat Pay and Alipay remain dominant. China’s cross-border push also stumbled: the mBridge multilateral payments effort suffered a setback about a year ago when the BIS withdrew on concerns it could help bypass Russia sanctions and weaken the U.S. dollar.

Whether interest will materially boost usage is unclear, given demand-deposit rates at China’s biggest banks have fallen to 0.05% after years of cuts. Banks face heavy deposit inflows as household saving rises and loan growth hits record lows. The PBOC has accelerated work, opening a Shanghai operations center in Sept. 2025 and calling for “steady development” in Oct. 2025. As of end-Nov. 2025, e-CNY processed 3.48 billion transactions totaling 16.7 trillion yuan ($2.38 trillion).