Huawei’s Latest Smartphone Comes with a CBDC Wallet for Digital Yuan

Tim Alper
Last updated: | 1 min read

China’s biggest smartphone maker Huawei has revealed that its latest flagship handset, the Mate 40, will come with a built-in wallet for the digital yuan – the nation’s forthcoming central bank digital currency.

Huawei Mate40 Pro. Source: consumer.huawei.com

In a post on the official Huawei Weibo account, the tech giant wrote,

“The Mate 40 series is the first smartphone that will support digital yuan hardware wallets, featuring hardware-level security, controllable anonymous protection and dual offline transactions – for a novel, safe and convenient payment experience.”

Offline transactions will essentially allow two Mate 40 owners to use NFC (Near-Field-Communication) technology to transfer digital CNY holdings to other devices in close proximity to their own.

The Mate 40, as well as a more powerful Pro and a larger Pro Plus model, are set to roll out as early as next month in Mainland China, although an exact release date is yet to be announced.

The announcement appears to all but confirm previous reports from mainstream Chinese media outlets that suggested Huawei has been involved behind the scenes with the central People’s Bank of China (PBoC)’s digital yuan project for several months if not longer.

Similar claims were also made by an overseas blockchain expert earlier this year, who claimed that in addition to Huawei, Alibaba’s e-payments arm and Tencent, the tech giant operator of the WeChat e-pay platform were “working directly” with the PBoC on the digital CNY.
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