(Yicai Global) April 24 -- Suzhou, a city in China’s coastal province of Jiangsu, will expand its initiative of paying salaries in digital Chinese yuan to public sector employees to more areas under its administration.

Employees of government authorities, public institutions, and state-owned firms in the county-level city of Changshu will join those in Xiangcheng district, Suzhou Industrial Park, and other areas under Suzhou’s jurisdiction to receive traffic subsidies and part of their salaries in e-yuan, according to a source in the local banking sector.

Suzhou is among the first batch of cities to trial the digital yuan, Dong Ximiao, chief researcher at Merchants Union Consumer Finance, told Yicai Global. Salary payments in e-yuan to public sector employees will promote the application of China’s digital currency, he noted.

The People’s Bank of China gave 10 banks permission to offer e-yuan-related services. They included six state-owned commercial banks -- Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications, and Postal Savings Bank of China -- as well as China Merchants Bank, Industrial Bank, WeBank, and MYBank.

But to ensure the e-yuan’s widespread availability, the PBOC decided to allow other banks to offer digital yuan circulation services together with the 10 designated lenders. This means that even if a bank is not among the 10 designated lenders, it can still pay salaries in digital yuan, Dong pointed out.

“For instance, in a partnership between BOC and Bank of Suzhou, officials can link their BOS accounts to the BOC digital yuan payment app and get their e-yuan salaries there,” Dong explained. “Afterwards, they will be able to transfer the money between the two accounts.”

Earlier this year, Jiangsu issued a document to create a convenient and highly-efficient e-yuan operating and management system with wide application-related coverage and a relatively perfect application ecology by the end of 2025.

Editors: Shi Yi, Futura Costaglione