Abstract: The Opinions instruct major payment institutions such as Alipay and Tenpay to increase the annual cumulative transaction limit for foreign visitors to China to use mobile payment from US$10,000 to US$50,000.
Wen Tang County
Edited by Zhang Wei
Consumption cannot be swiped by card, the payment limit of scanning code is not enough, and it is difficult to find change in cash, ......
In today's highly covered mobile payment, some groups of people such as the elderly and foreign visitors to China rely heavily on traditional payment methods such as cards and cash, while related payment channels are not smooth and service facilitation is not high from time to time.
To sum up, it is mainly reflected in two major aspects:First, it has caused a 'digital divide', and groups such as the elderly still prefer cash payments and feel inconvenientSecond, foreign visitors to China are not accustomed to and are not adapted to the domestic payment environment. Zhang Qingsong, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China (hereinafter referred to as the "central bank"), said.
On February 23, the executive meeting deliberated and passed 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 payment service blockages, and promote the parallel development and complementarity of mobile payment, bank cards, cash and other payment methods.
At the regular briefing on the policy of further optimizing payment services and improving payment convenience held on March 1, six major ministries and commissions including the People's Bank of China stated that they would work together to overcome the current difficulties in payment services.
According to Zhang Qingsong,The "Opinions" put forward six major measures around bank card acceptance, mobile payment convenience, cash use environment, bank account services and other aspects to systematically optimize payment services.
Specific measures include guiding major payment institutions such as Alipay and Tenpay (WeChat Pay) to increase the single transaction limit for foreign visitors to China from US$1,000 to US$5,000 and the annual cumulative transaction limit from US$10,000 to US$50,000; Increase the number of small-denomination currencies**, require commercial banks to provide services such as "coin purses", and rectify the refusal to accept cash.
The central bank has asked large state-owned banks, national joint-stock banks, commercial banks in major cities, China UnionPay, Alipay, Tenpay and other institutions to formulate detailed work plans, put forward goals and tasks, clarify the timetable, increase resource investment, and accelerate the promotion of various tasks.
After the meeting, Alipay responded that it had completed part of the quota increase requirements on March 1 and would complete them in the near future. Tenpay also issued a document saying that it has recently optimized the overseas payment experience in four aspects: overseas user registration method, payment opening process, certification-free micropayment limit, and simplified operation experience, and will further improve the payment service experience for the elderly and continue to improve the cross-border payment experience.
Six major measures to break through payment blockages
Optimizing payment services is a systematic project, which needs to adhere to the system concept, coordinate payment service subjects, industry authorities, local governments and other parties to form a joint force, implement comprehensive policies, and strive to achieve significant results in the short term. Zhang Qingsong said.
On the basis of consolidating the main responsibility of payment services, the central bank will further promote departmental coordination and local efforts to achieve comprehensive policies.
In terms of departmental cooperation, the central bank will establish an inter-departmental cooperation mechanism with the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and other ministries and commissions to form a "1+N" policy guarantee system. Among them, "1" refers to the "Opinions", and "n" refers to the supporting policy documents issued by various departments and lines.
According to Zhang Qingsong, the six major measures proposed in the "Opinions" are: first, promote key venues and key merchants to accept overseas bank cards, and effectively improve the bank card acceptance environment; The second is to adhere to the positioning of cash as a bottom line, continue to improve the cash use environment, and continuously improve the level of foreign currency exchange and cash services; The third is to fully consider the special needs of the elderly, foreign Chinese and other groups, and make arrangements for services suitable for the elderly and internationalization, so as to further improve the convenience of mobile payment; Fourth, better protect consumers' payment choices. Business districts, tourist attractions, hotel accommodations and other key places above designated size must support diversified payment methods such as mobile payment, bank cards, and cash. Fifth, bank payment institutions should further optimize the account opening process, reasonably implement account classification and hierarchical management, and continuously improve the service level of accounts; Sixth, carry out various forms of targeted publicity activities, and continue to strengthen the construction of a soft environment such as publicity and promotion.
For the operation of the "1+N" policy guarantee system, Zhang Qingsong gave an example, at present, there are problems such as taxis not charging cash for taxis, and changing is stuck in points. In response to this problem, the central bank will protect cash, especially change of less than 20 yuan**, and commercial banks should have enough change to provide "coin purse" services. At the same time, the transportation management department will require taxi operators and taxi drivers to prepare enough change and provide change services.
In terms of local development, the central bank has made arrangements for all branches, and will act as the leading unit to promote the local ** to conduct special research on local payment facilitation issues, and cooperate with local departments of commerce, culture and tourism, transportation and other departments to comprehensively sort out the problems existing in key institutions, key scenarios and key business districts in the region, the path to solve and the status of goal realization, and take targeted measures.
I have emphasized the 'key points' many times in key areas, key institutions, key places, and key merchants, because the places where foreign people come to China are relatively concentrated, so we focus on the key tasks, such as bank card acceptance, foreign currency exchange, cash payment, mobile payment, and publicity and promotion, and do a good job in satisfaction surveys and work hard. Zhang Qingsong emphasized.
Wild card mobile payment increase: $50,000 per year
Since the Chengdu Universiade in July 2023, the central bank has strived to solve the problem of blockages and difficulties in the payment of foreign personnel to China.
Zhang Qingsong said that there are three major difficulties in the inconvenience of domestic payment for foreign personnel in China: first, the rate of overseas bank card is much higher than that of domestic payment; Second, the number of merchants accepting overseas bank cards is relatively small; The third is that merchants sometimes have no change to look for change.
In this regard, the central bank put forward a work plan of "large-amount card swiping, small-amount code scanning, and cash pocketing". On the basis of this idea, we will promote the deepening of payment convenience from the three aspects of mobile payment, card swiping and cash.
In terms of mobile payment, Zhang Qingsong said that the payment blockages encountered by overseas people in China can be summarized as "not usable", "not easy to use" and "not wanting to use".
Can't use', some foreign friends can't tie overseas bank cards;'It's not easy to use', some foreign friends spend more than a certain amount, can't pay the bill, and feel that it is not easy to use;When there are many problems and the payment is inconvenient, it is natural to 'not want to use it'. Zhang Qingsong said.
In order to solve the above problems, the central bank has instructed payment institutions to introduce a series of facilitation measures.
First, in view of the low success rate of using Alipay and WeChat to bind overseas bank cards to personnel coming to China, Alipay and Tenpay are required and guided to optimize business processes and improve the efficiency of card binding.
The second is to simplify the identity verification arrangement, so that foreign visitors to China can handle a series of procedures such as card binding more conveniently. "We are also very concerned about the protection of personal information, and we will strictly require relevant institutions to implement laws and regulations such as "Personal Information Protection" to effectively protect the security of personal information. Zhang Qingsong emphasized.
The third is to guide major payment institutions such as Alipay and Tenpay to increase the single transaction limit for foreign visitors to China from US$1,000 to US$5,000, and the annual cumulative transaction limit from US$10,000 to US$50,000.
In this process, two tasks are involved: "external card binding" and "outsourcing for internal use", the former is to support overseas bank cards to bind payment red envelopes and WeChat APP to complete payment in China, and the latter is to support overseas e-wallets to be used in China. At present, Alipay and Tenpay have introduced wallets in 13 countries.
In 2023, nearly 4 million inbound people will use mobile payment, and the actual number of transactions will exceed 70 million, with an amount of more than 100 billion yuan.
The so-called "large-value card swiping" refers to respecting the habit of overseas people coming to China to pay for large amounts of bank cards, guiding commercial banks and payment institutions in large business districts, airports, railway stations and other fields, and accelerating the acceptance of overseas bank cards opened by overseas merchants. Up to now, the acceptance coverage rate of outdoor cards for key businesses in Shanghai and Zhejiang has exceeded 90%.
According to the statistical analysis of the central bank,Among the three major payment methods of credit card, cash and mobile payment, mobile payment accounts for the highest proportion in terms of the number of transactions; In terms of transaction amount, the bulk is credit card, followed by cash. According to data from Shanghai, nearly 30% of expatriates pay in cash when they spend money in Shanghai.
As mentioned above, the difficulty of cash payment is change. To this end, the central bank requires commercial banks to provide "coin purse" services, such as 300 yuan per wallet, to facilitate merchants to exchange change.
In order to facilitate the use of cash by foreigners in China, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange has optimized its foreign currency exchange services, on the one hand, in addition to bank outlets and ATMs, it has added 119 specialized foreign currency exchange institutions and facilities, and the stock has reached 2,295; Expand the number of convertible currencies to more than 40 types and enrich the amount of cash and change that can be exchanged for foreign currencies**. On the other hand, we will strengthen the publicity and training of foreign currency exchange services, and cooperate with airports and other places to set up foreign currency exchange service consultation points.
In addition, the PBOC has guided banks to continuously optimize bank account services, rationally implement classified and hierarchical management of accounts, and improve the level of account services. By the end of 2023, domestic financial institutions had opened about 22 million bank accounts for foreign travelers, an increase of 3.14 million from the end of 2022.
Improving the environment for cash payments: increasing change**
With the rapid development of mobile payment, the "digital divide" faced by the elderly has gradually become prominent.
To this end, the central bank issued the "Opinions on Improving the Convenience of Payment Services for the Elderly" in 2020, focusing on the blockages and difficulties of payment services for the elderly, and making work arrangements around the upgrading of payment products for the elderly, the optimization of bank branch services, and the popularization of payment knowledge, so as to improve the payment service level of the elderly group.
According to Zhang Qingsong, at present, the main mobile payment apps have been upgraded for the elderly, by simplifying the process, adding warm reminders, increasing language broadcasts, enlarging font images, dedicated line manual customer service and other ways to improve the mobile payment service experience of the elderly group. More than 96% of bank outlets across the country have promoted the transformation of the elderly, and through measures such as upgrading self-service equipment and setting up "green channels" and "service areas" for elderly customers, the elderly group has been facilitated to handle payment and settlement business.
At present, cash is still a preferred payment method for the elderly group. For this reason, it is particularly important to ensure a cash payment environment.
In 2020, the company took the lead in drafting and reporting for the issuance and implementation of the "Notice of the General Office on Effectively Solving the Implementation Plan for the Elderly in Using Intelligent Technology", requiring that no unit or individual should refuse to accept cash in various ways, and strengthen the supervision of the payment market.
At the same time, in order to improve the environment for the use of cash, the central bank, ** and other 12 ministries and commissions jointly established a consultation mechanism for refusing to accept cash, unblocking channels for complaints and reports, and punishing refusal to accept cash in accordance with the law.
According to Chen Hongwan, director of the Department of Finance, Finance and Credit Construction, as of the end of 2023, a total of 111 legal entities have been publicized administrative punishment information, and the number of penalties and publicity is declining year by year, promoting the better formation of a consensus and atmosphere that "refusing to accept RMB cash is an illegal act".
Zhang Qingsong also stated that it is necessary to ensure the status of RMB cash as legal tender, and resolutely investigate and rectify the refusal of individual merchants to accept cash in accordance with the law. At the same time, the central bank will increase the number of small denominations of money** and require commercial banks to provide services such as "coin purses" to optimize the environment for cash as a means of payment to benefit all consumers, including the elderly.
In the next step, the central bank will continue to improve the payment experience of the elderly group in four aspects:
The first is to improve the inclusiveness of payment services, focus on key convenient places such as public utility payment, scenic spots, shopping malls, and medical care, and retain traditional payment methods such as cash and bank cards.
The second is to continuously optimize mobile payment services to ensure that the elderly can use them and continue to bridge the "digital divide".
The third is to further promote the continuous improvement of the service level of bank outlets for the elderly, promote the experience of demonstration outlets, continuously improve the temperature of payment services, and create a warm payment environment.
Fourth, we should carry out regular publicity on payment for the elderly, and do a good job in payment security through multi-channel contact publicity, including the popularization of knowledge on the prevention of telecommunication fraud, so as to protect the money bags of the elderly group.
Zhang Qingsong stressed that the central bank will adhere to the positioning of inclusive development of payment methods, "that is to say, we encourage the current payment methods, future payment methods, and traditional payment methods, and we must develop in parallel and complement each other." ”