Salaries will no longer be deposited into bank cards, but paid via digital RMB wallets, a move that has sparked a huge stir among netizens.

Fox Mei found that the content of today's episode about "digital yuan" perfectly calls back to the article we published 5 years ago: What on earth is the difference between digital yuan, Alipay and WeChat Pay?

They even fall on the exact same date!

This is not a deliberate arrangement. Fox Mei happened to come across the latest progress today, so we will take this opportunity to compare and see what level the "digital yuan" has reached 6 years later?

Let's read it in reverse order, starting with the latest updates.

The hot topic that sparked heated discussion among netizens today comes from several notices issued by multiple universities in Jiangsu:

Starting from November 2026, the salaries of all on-the-job, regular staff (including personnel agency employees) of the university will be distributed through digital yuan wallets......

Some netizens are just watching the fun:

"For me, what I lack is not digital yuan, but the actual amount of yuan in my account."

Some others expressed their support:

"It is recommended to promote this, because counterfeit banknotes still appear occasionally."

"Why hasn't it been rolled out nationwide yet? It's not available in my area."

Still other netizens said it was nothing new:

"I work in a public institution, and we have been getting our salaries paid in digital yuan for several years."

"The medical system in Jiangsu has been distributing salaries this way for a long time."

Of course, there are still netizens who are confused:

"Salary is legal income in the first place, does it make any difference where it is sent?"

Seeing people's mixed reactions, Fox Mei thinks it is necessary to sort out what is going on here.

The practice of "distributing salaries through digital yuan" has indeed been piloted for several years.

It is not only applied to schools, government agencies and public institutions, but also the salaries of workers at some construction sites are paid in digital yuan.

As for why we need to expand the use of "digital yuan" for salary distribution.

Apart from the steady advancement of the pilot program, the comprehensive upgrade of the digital yuan infrastructure service system is also a key driving force!

Last week, the Digital Yuan Operation and Management Center officially released two core achievements: the central bank-end Digital Yuan System (DCEPS) and the digital yuan smart contract ecological service framework.

To put it simply, these two core achievements mean:

The former means that "digital yuan" has more abundant functions, with many new "comprehensive settlement" functions added.

Such as utility bill payment, mobile top-up, transit QR code and so on.

Fox Mei will put a screenshot of the App below for your intuitive reference.

It will be iteratively upgraded in the future, with the goal of building it into a comprehensive platform.

This means that after your salary is sent to the "digital yuan wallet", you can transfer it directly to your bank card with zero handling fee and instant arrival (the key advantage is that it supports offline use without network);

Now there is also a service entrance, which can be used for utility bill payment, consumption payment and other scenarios, focusing on bringing convenience and benefits to the people.

As for the "smart contract ecological service", for ordinary people, it is a guarantee that your salary will be credited to your account on time.

It aims to solve the fundamental problem of "misappropriated salary and wage arrears" for grassroots staff!

This is really great good news for workers on engineering construction sites.

If you have friends working on construction sites, you must have seen them worrying about not getting their salaries right before the Spring Festival, right?

The current practice of "paying salaries with digital yuan" can be understood in this way: Party A does not need to transfer the money to the general contractor of the project first, but directly allocates the funds for special use through the contract account.

After confirming that the attendance and construction schedule nodes are up to standard, the salary will be sent directly to the worker's wallet.

Just this point alone is already a very significant progress.

So in the general direction, it feels that we still need to speed up the popularization of this practice!

It should be added here that the current practice of "paying salaries with digital yuan" is not a mandatory requirement for all units and enterprises across the country, and it is still in the stage of gradual pilot promotion.

After talking about salary distribution, let's take a look at what other improvements digital yuan has made in the past 6 years?

Six years ago, we only made a simple distinction.

Digital yuan can be simply understood as "digital cash", which is the same as legal tender in real life.

At that time, we emphasized that it is money itself, but it cannot generate interest on its own, because it is not a wealth management platform.

However, since January 1 this year, it has started to generate interest! It has officially entered the era of "digital deposit money" from the era of "digital cash".

The balance stored in the digital yuan wallet this year can accrue interest according to the demand deposit rate.

Although the interest rate is not high, it is much better than "keeping cash in your physical wallet for a year without getting any extra money".

Secondly, the aforementioned "smart contract" is also bound to scenarios such as time-limited coupons, targeted subsidies, and special corporate funds.

In the future, all kinds of funds will be more open and transparent. At the same time, it can assist in the monitoring of monetary policy and capital flow, and also detect illegal operations in time!

So to sum up in one sentence, today's "digital yuan" is no longer just an electronic wallet for storing central bank cash, but also has key functions such as demand deposit interest accrual, contract-based salary payment, prepaid fund supervision, and fiscal subsidy distribution.

These differentiated functions have enabled digital yuan to achieve broader and more comprehensive application results.

At the same time, it once again confirms that digital yuan will coexist and develop with various platforms such as bank cards, Alipay and WeChat Pay.

From the perspective of ordinary people, digital yuan just changes the form of the cash we originally carry in our pockets and adds an extra layer of protection.

The part of our funds that we want to deposit in banks for fixed-term deposits, large-denomination certificates of deposit and other wealth management products remains unchanged; we can still use Alipay and WeChat Pay for installment payments or to get payment discounts as before.

If there are any subsidies or other benefits related to digital yuan in the future, Fox Mei will share them with everyone then. We will make sure that all the benefits and discounts from various platforms are truly implemented!

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Tech Fox" (ID: kejihutv), written by Fox Mei, and published with authorization from 36Kr.