While China may be wary of cryptocurrencies, it is steadfastly embracing blockchain technology with the Southern Chinese city of Shenzhen serving as a testbed.
One year after the first blockchain-based invoice was issued in the city adjacent to Hong Kong, about 5300 companies in the city have issued nearly 6mn invoices, according to a report in Xinhua News Agency.
Nearly 44,000 invoices were issued in a day on average with a total face value of 3.9bn (554mn US dollars) for transactions covering 113 sectors.
So far, more than 5,300 companies in the city have registered to use blockchain invoices on the platform developed by the Chinese tech giant, Tencent, which owns social media messaging platform WeChat, in partnership with the city’s tax bureau.
The use of blockchain-based invoices has been steadily expanding in the tech hub since a number of local restaurants, banks and supermarkets launched the service last August.
The service is now widely used in finance, retailing, catering and hospitality in Shenzhen. On August 10, 2017, Shenzhen became the first city to pilot such digitized invoices when a local restaurant issued a blockchain-based invoice.
The platform is reportedly gaining momentum with the increasing participation from members in industries such as finance, retailing, catering, and hospitality.
Another such initiative in Shenzhen include Digital Guandong project (a collaboration between Tencent, China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile) which recently completed its first blockchain-based supply chain financing transaction with Standard Chartered Bank (see here).
