Leading Chinese banks are promoting the digital yuan over Alipay and WeChat Pay for an upcoming shopping festival in China. Some of China’s largest state banks are actively promoting the digital yuan as a superior means of payment to the country’s two leading payment providers, Alipay and WeChat Pay.

In an April 26 report, Reuters revealed that six of China’s largest banks are promoting China’s nascent central bank-issued digital currency, or CBDC, in Shanghai ahead of an online shopping festival on May 5.

The banks are urging retail outlets and consumers to download the digital wallet and make purchases using the CBDC, or e-CNY. This would bypass the current payment methods of choice for millions of shoppers – Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay.

The report noted that one bank official appointed to CBDC trial’s rollout in Shanghai under the guidance of the People’s Bank of China specifically described the digital currency as superior to Alipay and WeChat Pay.

The head of the PBoC's digital currency research institute, Mu Changchun, stated  that the central bank does not intend to compete directly with Alipay and WeChat Pay, but acts as a backup to “ensure financial stability in case something happens” to them.

However, the state has also been increasing efforts to curtail tech giant dominance and clamp down on anticompetitive behaviour in the internet sector. In early April, the government hit Alibaba with a record fine of $2.8 billion for monopolistic practices according to CNN .

The rollout of China’s digital yuan will allow the central government to gain control over a share of the massive troves of financial data that are being hoarded by the country’s top payment providers.

“Big data is wealth. Whoever owns data thrives,” another banking official tasked with promoting the CBDC told Reuters, adding: “WeChat Pay and Alipay own an ocean of data,”