350,000 digital gift packets to be given away

Shanghai will give away virtual gift packets to its citizens during the second Double Five Shopping Festival to boost consumption, and also push forward the e-yuan trial.

A total of 350,000 digital red packets, each containing 55 yuan (US$8.6), will be distributed to Shanghai residents in June via a lottery.

Everyone who is now in the city can sign up for the lottery with a Chinese mainland phone number and a resident ID card between June 5 and June 6, via the WeChat official account "shanghaifabu," or the official accounts of the seven banks supporting the digital yuan trial.

The seven banks are six major state-owned banks, namely, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of Communications and Postal Savings Bank of China, as well as Zhejiang E-Commerce Bank, or MYbank, an online-only private bank under the country's tech giant Alibaba Group.

Winners will be informed via text message after 9am on June 11, and receive their red packets through the official Digital Renminbi mobile application.

The red packets are valid from 9am on June 11 to the end of June 20, during which winners can use them at all the merchants and platforms supporting e-yuan payment.

This is to support China's  efforts  to launch the world's first sovereign digital currency, and is also to step up the urban digitalization of Shanghai and help build a new development pattern, according to the authorities.