China's digital currency sees soaring growth in users as transactions near $10 billion

• China's central bank digital currency has been used for $9.7 billion in transactions, as of the end of October.
• And more than 140 million people have opened digital wallets for the digital yuan, or eCYN.

China has seen a steep increase in individuals using its new digital currency since this summer as central banks all over the world explore issuing their own tokens to speed up payments and compete with the likes of bitcoin.

As of the end of October, more than 140 million people have opened wallets for the new digital yuan, which has been used for transactions totalling 62 billion yuan ($9.7 billion), a People's Bank of China official said Wednesday according to Reuters.

That's up sharply from July, when there were 21 million "eCYN" wallet users who made $5.3 billion in transactions.

China has been testing the digital currency across a multitude of regional pilot programs and trials across the country. Still, there is no official launch date for when the eCYN will go nationwide, said Mu Changchun, director-general of the digital currency institute at China's central bank

So far, 1.55 million merchants can take payments with eCYN wallets, Mu told Hong Kong's "Fintech Week" conference. And users can pay for utilities, transportation, and government services.

In addition to individual users, approximately 10 million corporate accounts have been created, according to Bloomberg.

China has taken aggressive steps to advance its eCYN while at the same time cracking down on cryptocurrencies outside of state control. In September, Beijing banned cryptocurrency transactions after earlier driving out crypto miners.

Meanwhile, Wall Street is bullish about central bank digital currencies (CBDC).

In a Wednesday report, JPMorgan said CBDCs could save global firms upwards of $100 billion per year in transaction costs for cross-border payments. The report, which was written with consulting firm Oliver Wyman, estimates that banks take on over $120 billion in total transaction costs each year to conduct wholesale payments across borders.

"The case for CBDCs to address pain points in cross-border payments is very compelling," Oliver Wyman partner Jason Ekberg said in a statement.

"The bulk of today's wholesale cross-border payments process remains sub-optimal due to multiple intermediaries between the sending and receiving banks, often resulting in high transaction costs, long settlement times, and lack of transparency on the status of the payments," he added.