Chinese state-run banks reportedly are looking to expand digital yuan usage to sales of investment funds and insurance

• Two Chinese state-run banks are looking to expand usage of China's experimental digital yuan.
• China Construction Bank is working on allowing e-yuan holders to make online fund investments.
• Trials of China's CBDC logged $5.3 billion of transactions as of June.

To expand usage of China's experimental digital currency, two state-run banks are looking into allowing customers to use the asset to buy investment funds and insurance products, according to a South China Morning Post report.

The move, if successful, could stretch the usage of the e-yuan outside of low value, daily retail payments outlined by the People's Bank of China when it started working on the digital currency project in 2014, the report published on Tuesday said.

China Construction Bank, among the Big Four group of Chinese lenders, told the newspaper it's working with platform Shanghai Tiantian Fund Distribution to allow digital yuan holders to make online fund investments. The work also involves JD.com, the Chinese e-commerce heavyweight valued at around $120 billion with its shares listed on the Nasdaq.

The lender has been a part of the research and development of China's central bank digital currency, or CBDC, since 2017, and views an e-yuan as enhancing payment efficiency. China Construction Bank said it's opened 7.23 million digital wallets for individual users, and 1.19 million for companies. The bank as of June reported a cumulative 28.5 million e-yuan transactions totaling 18.9 billion yuan ($2.9 billion).

Bank of Communications is assessing using the e-yuan to fund management and insurance companies, a Bocom executive told SCMP without disclosing with which fund managers or insurance firms it's working.

Trials of China's CBDC logged $5.3 billion of transactions as of June, according to the report.

Five countries have fully launched a digital currency, according to think tank Atlantic Council. A Federal Reserve research paper on whether the US central bank should establish a digital currency is expected to be published in September.