Beijing Business Daily (Reporter Liao Meng) Focusing on the optimization of payment services, the regulatory authorities have new deployments. On February 23, Premier Li Qiang presided over an executive meeting, which deliberated and adopted the "Opinions on Further Optimizing Payment Services and Improving Payment Convenience" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), emphasizing the need to focus on the inconvenience of payment for the elderly, foreign personnel and other groups, strengthen coordination and cooperation, increase necessary resource investment, take multiple measures to break through service blockages, and promote the parallel development and complementarity of mobile payment, bank cards, cash and other payment methods.
Although the full text of the "Opinions" has not yet been released to the public, this optimized deployment has attracted widespread attention in the market. In recent years, with the rapid development of mobile payment, guiding payment to benefit enterprises and people and continuously strengthening the convenience of payment services has also become one of the key tasks of the payment market. In terms of improving the convenience of payment services, the elderly, agriculture, overseas people in China, medical care, tourism and other groups and scenarios are the key areas of the layout.
Talking about the importance of the latest deployment, Wang Pengbo, a senior analyst in the financial industry at Broadcom Analysis, pointed out that the People's Bank of China has always emphasized improving the convenience of payment services under the premise of compliance. Judging from the existing market structure, the blockage of payment by overseas visitors to China is gradually being cleared. China's mobile payment market is leading in the world, but perfect payment services cannot only rely on payment, but also need to achieve overall cooperation through transportation, retail, online booking and other links. Compared with the previous statements around the optimization of payment services, the deployment level of this *** is higher, and it is expected to accelerate the efficiency, speed and comprehensiveness of policy implementation, further improving the efficiency and convenience of financial services.
The meeting emphasized the need to focus on the inconvenience of payment for the elderly, foreign visitors to China and other groups. These groups may face many difficulties in the payment process, such as not being familiar with mobile payment operations and not being able to pay in foreign languages. By strengthening coordination and increasing resource investment, we can promote more universal and convenient payment services, meet the actual needs of these groups, and promote economic and social development and international exchanges. Wang Peng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, added.
In fact, in response to the problem of "inconvenience in payment for foreign personnel coming to China", under the overall arrangement of the People's Bank of China and multiple departments, payment institutions, banks, business districts and scenic spots have begun to take action. At the end of 2023, Zhang Qingsong, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, also revealed that the People's Bank of China is working with relevant departments to orderly promote various tasks to improve the payment convenience of such groups in accordance with the solution of "large-value card swiping, small-amount code scanning, and cash pocketing". On February 5, Beijing Capital International Airport and Daxing International Airport officially opened the Overseas Guest Payment Service Demonstration Zone, providing diversified payment services covering foreign card swiping, QR code payment, foreign currency exchange, cash use, digital yuan and so on.
On the other hand, in December 2023, when the People's Bank of China (PBoC) interpreted the Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Non-bank Payment Institutions, it also emphasized the need to guide payment institutions to improve the quality and efficiency of serving the real economy. Zhang Qingsong pointed out that the purpose of payment institutions to carry out business should be to provide small-amount and convenient payment services, and their supervision and management should focus on whether to achieve the goal of serving the real economy.
In Wang Peng's view, the goal of optimizing payment services is to improve the convenience and security of payment. By strengthening technology research and development and improving payment infrastructure, relevant institutions can reduce the operational difficulty and risk in the payment process, and improve payment efficiency and user experience. At the same time, it is also crucial to ensure the security of payment, and effective technical means and management measures need to be taken to ensure the safety and reliability of the payment process.
Wang Pengbo also emphasized that it is necessary to optimize payment, but payment-related institutions should not blindly pursue convenience and ignore possible risks, but should still take compliance as the premise and do a good job in risk control measures in identity authentication and transaction management.