<p>The Chinese city of Suzhou is reportedly rolling out a wider test for the country's central bank digital currency in "red packets" starting next month.</p> <p>The Paper, an online media under the state-owned Shanghai United Media Group, <a href="https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_10102703">said</a> in a report on Monday the trial will take place on December 12, a date that's known as Double 12 in China – a year-end shopping festival. </p> <p>In April, it was already <a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/62053/chinese-local-government-employees-to-receive-central-bank-digital-currency-in-may-report">reported</a> that some government employees were given transportation allowances in digital yuan – also known as DC/EP – as part of an ongoing trial in Suzhou. </p> <p>According to The Paper, the form of the wider trial in Suzhou will be similar to the one that was carried out in Shenzhen in October, where about $1.5 million in digital yuan was <a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/80336/chinese-city-to-host-digital-currency-lottery-as-part-of-dcep-trial">given out</a> to 50,000 residents as "red packets" via a lottery. </p> <p>Residents who won the lottery could spend the free digital yuan at any of the more than 3,000 stores that participated in the Shenzhen trial.</p> <p>The report said what's new about the Suzhou trial is that it will enable an additional offline payment feature for the DC/EP wallets, where transactions can be initiated by just touching two payment devices, i.e. smartphones, even in an offline environment via the Near Field Communication technology.</p> <p>Meanwhile, the Chinese city of Chengdu appears to be also doing a wider trial of DC/EP wallets. </p> <p>For instance, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), one of the big-four state-owned commercial banks in the country, has been advertising an "internal testing wallet" feature within its mobile app to at least public users in Chengdu, The Block has found.</p> <p>However, at this stage, only white-listed users will be able to activate a DC/EP wallet, a customer service representative told The Block.</p> <div id="attachment_85411"class="wp-caption alignnone" style="max-width: 750px;"><img class="has-caption wp-image-85411 size-medium" src="https://www.tbstat.com/wp/uploads/2020/11/IMG_6472-740x450.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="450" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Screenshot of ICBC's mobile app for users in Chengdu</p></div>