China ready to offer digital yuan payment services to Olympics visitors

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China is ready to provide digital yuan payment services to the Beijing Winter Olympics visitors, the country's central bank said on Wednesday.

The world's second largest economy is going to globally showcase its digital currency, dubbed e-CNY, for the first time during the Olympics game next month.

At present, payment services related to the Winter Olympics, such as accounts, bank cards, mobile payments, cash and digital yuan are all prepared, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement.

"(We) will offer quality, efficient and safe payment services for domestic and overseas visitors," it added.

The PBOC is ramping up testing of its e-CNY, with the pilot version of the digital yuan wallet application available for downloads in mobile phone app stores in China since Jan. 4.

(Reporting by Jason Xue and Andrew Galbraith; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)