The Agricultural Commerce Bank of Zhangjiagang, located in the Chinese province of Suzhou, announced that it has issued a 500,000 digital yuan (e-CNY) loan backed by intellectual property as collateral.

According to local news agency Sohu, on Wednesday, the loan was issued with the unanimous approval of the city's consumer markets regulator, the financial markets regulator and municipal officials.

The recipient of the loan was not named in the report, but it is an entity that manufactures environmental protection equipment for steel mills in Suzhou Province.

As he told the entity, due to the slight rise in the number of customer bills, it decided to try the new borrowing method, whereby the loan was released directly into its digital wallet for the digital yuan.

Meanwhile, Zhang Jiagang Agricultural Commerce Bank said this is another trial in the country's digital yuan pilot program.

Two days ago, the People's Bank of China said it wanted to increase the number of digital yuan testing sites, currently in 15 provinces.

In the last data update on May 31, 2022, the central bank recorded 264 million digital yuan transactions totaling 83 billion yuan ($12.29 billion) since the start. Also, more than 4.567 million merchant stations across China accept digital yuan as payment.

In addition, 64 companies with a total market capitalization of CNY 560 billion ($82.9 billion) listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges are exploring blockchain technology.