Blockchain
Chinese healthcare and energy providers will allow patients and customers to pay with the digital yuan, in new breakthroughs for the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC).
According to Chinese media outlet WXRB, both outpatients and hospitalized mental health patients can now use the CBDC to pay for medical treatment.
Deposits, medication and hospital expenses can be paid through the central bank’s digital yuan app, WXRB explains.
Hospital staff said digital yuan payments were a “safer and more convenient form of smart payment”.
They added that digital yuan payments were faster.
And they said the CBDC helped psychiatric facilities “improve the medical experience” for patients.
Employees explained that the CBDC would allow hospitals to continue with “medical reform” and “digitalization”.
In 2021, the country’s first yuan-denominated digital hard wallets were tested in the staff canteen of Tongren Hospital of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.
CBDC-driven compensation in China’s healthcare and energy sector
Meanwhile, government agencies of Jiangsu province used the CBDC to pay their most recent electricity bill for municipal street lamps.
The electricity was supplied by the government-owned State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co.
The power supplier is the local branch of the State Grid Corporation of China.
It serves more than 46 million energy consumers.
While the digital yuan has found a variety of use cases in the world of retail payments and business-to-business payments, intergovernmental payments have remained uncharted territory.
The Xinhua news agency reported that the payment was a “national first” for public institutions.
Last week, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) approved the CBDC for use in the securities market.
The move means Chinese investors will soon be able to use the token to pay for wealth products such as funds.
