ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – More than half a million of the Kurdistan Region’s public sector workers and pension recipients are set to receive their July entitlements digitally in the upcoming days through the Kurdish government’s MyAccount initiative, a first in the Region’s history.

The Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) finance ministry on Tuesday confirmed that Baghdad has transferred nearly 957 billion dinars to the ministry’s account at the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) for July salaries of the Region's civil servants.

MyAccount’s team told The New Region that the distribution of salaries is set to begin on Wednesday, adding that over 501,500 individuals with activated banking cards will be receiving their salaries digitally over the next three days.

That figure includes 266,400 civil servants, 191,500 Peshmerga and internal security (Asayish) members, and 43,600 pensioners. Around 274,000 of the beneficiaries are from Erbil, more than 144,400 from Duhok, and over 83,000 from Sulaimani.

MyAccount has so far registered over 900,000 beneficiaries and issued more than 585,000 banking cards. Over 580 ATM machines have been installed across the Kurdistan Region, allowing the civil servants easy access to withdraw their salaries.

In its endeavor to advance the Kurdistan Region towards a cashless economy, the KRG initiated the digitization of the payroll system for over one million public sector beneficiaries through the MyAccount initiative, which started in September 2023.

The initiative aims to modernize the method by which civil servants receive their salaries, enhancing financial stability and granting beneficiaries access to a diverse array of financial services, including savings accounts.