By December of this year, students in Jiangsu will likely have a new way     1    (pay) tuition fees: paying by the digital yuan, or e-CNY. This is     2     Jiangsu province will encourage the use of e-CNY in its education system, according to a plan recently     3    (release) by the Jiangsu Education Department. Students will     4    (probable) pay examination registration fees and receive scholarships in digital yuan. They are also encouraged to pay in digital yuan for ordinary consumption (消费) on campus. China     5    (start) creating the digital version of the renminbi in 2014. Liu Ting is a resident of Suzhou, one of the first pilot     6    (city) for e-CNY announced by the People’s Bank of China in April 2020. “If you want to use e-CNY to buy something, you just need to download the e-CNY app and open     7     account,” Liu told Teens. “Then you can use it to scan the payment code in off line shops.”

One benefit of e-CNY is that it is safer compared to Alipay and WeChat payment. E-commerce (电子商务) platforms     8     accept payments by e-CNY will not have access to users’ personal information. In addition, “the use of e-CNY can reduce trade costs for smaller businesses,” said Zhou Maohua, an analyst at China Everbright Bank. At present, third—party payment platforms such as Alipay and WeChat require certain fees when money is transferred (转账) through them. E-CNY payment,     9    , can transfer money directly from buyers to sellers, which will greatly reduce trade costs.

The     10    (develop) of e-CNY has progressed steadily. Data from the central bank shows that the value of digital yuan in circulation (流通) reached 13.61 billion yuan by the end of 2022. China is still working to expand its usage in more areas.