Chinese city Changshu starts paying public employees in digital yuan

Per Nikkei

Starting this month, Changshu, a city in the Jiangsu province of China, will start paying its public sector employees in digital yuan compared to the conventional bank notes. This comes as the country is trying to promote the digital currency.

Per the report, this move comes as the digital yuan was not able to gain enough support and circulation due to what was described as "competition from mobile payment services." The move was done with hopes that it could spark the adoption of the digital yuan "in the larger consumer market.

Those in Changshu that will start receiving payments in digital yuan include its civil servants and state-owned company employees. The private sector could still decide how they pay their employees' wages.

Changshu has already started paying out employees in the public sector with digital yuan from June to September 2022. So far, the city has already paid over 4,900 employees with digital currency.

In 2018, it was reported that Changshu had 14,000 public sector workers. If that number is still true now, all of them would be receiving their payments in digital yuan.

The payment of salaries in digital yuan would happen by public sector employees receiving their payments directly in their digital wallets.

In February, it was reported that the Bank of Japan also planned to launch its own "digital yen" pilot program in April for its central bank digital currency. During that time, they were still deciding whether they should launch their digital yen or not.

Per CoinGeek, it was reported that Japan planned to set up a panel in order to explore whether the digital yen was feasible. So far, they have not yet reached a conclusion.

US Rep Marjorie Greene said in April that instead of going to the digital currency payment systems path, it was better if people would "go back to the gold standard."

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