It is learned from the junta’s Central Bank of Myanmar (CBM) that they authorized private banks and junta-backed financial services platforms to pay monthly salaries to government staff from 34 ministries in Yangon, Mandalay and Naypyitaw in digital currency.
The CBM informed all ministries and departments to cooperate with CBM to make salary payments to their staff with digitally.
ATMs are being installed in states and regions for convenience of government employees in withdrawing their salaries through ATM debit cards, the CBM directive says.
There 1,908 ATM machines being installed in Yangon Region, 707 machines in Mandalay Region and 332 in Naypyitaw and more will be installed as and when needed, it says.
The CBM directive says they are speeding up the work of reducing printing paper money and curbing inflation through implementing a strategy of a national digital currency payment system. A pilot project in Naypyitaw to make salary payments to staff from ministries and departments in digital currency was found successful. The staff from 32 ministries were paid their salaries in digital currency in Yangon and Mandalay since May 2023. The monthly transactions in digital currency to the government staff in these cities totaled over 9 billion Kyats, the CBM says.
A businessperson pondered that the Military Council was implementing the digital currency and digital payment system urgently so they would not need to print all the required money. They could also settle the budget deficit of nearly 20 trillion Kyats by this means so they are tightly restricting the use of paper money in the country.
The Military Council is using this digital currency and payment system more to tighten and control the cash flows and cash payments in the territories they recently lost to ethnic armed groups, he said.
