SHANGHAI: Chinese e-commerce company JD.com Inc said on Saturday it has become the country's first virtual platform to accept Beijing's homegrown digital currency. JD Digits, the company's fintech arm, will accept digital yuan as payment for some products on its online mall, as part of an experimental giveaway of digital yuan to citizens of Suzhou, near Shanghai, according to a post on the company's official WeChat account.

China's digital yuan is one of the world's most advanced "central bank digital currency" initiatives, as authorities globally respond to threats from private currencies such as bitcoin and Facebook's Libra. Under the Suzhou programme, the municipal government and the People's Bank of China (PBOC) will issue 200 digital yuan "red envelopes" to 100,000 consumers selected through a lottery.