On March 1, the ** Information Office held a regular policy briefing, and the People's Bank of China, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and other departments introduced the relevant situation of "further optimizing payment services and improving payment convenience".
Quick facts: Banks and payment institutions should further optimize the account opening process, reasonably implement account classification and hierarchical management, and continuously improve the level of account services.
Instruct major payment institutions such as Alipay and Tenpay to increase the limit for a single transaction of mobile payment by foreign visitors to China from US$1,000 to US$5,000.
At present, the main mobile payment apps have been upgraded for the elderly, and more than 96% of the country's bank outlets have been upgraded for the elderly.
Continue to retain the manual ticket window and manual ticket check-in method to facilitate the elderly and foreign friends to purchase tickets offline.
**What measures are proposed in the "Opinions on Further Optimizing Payment Services and Improving Payment Convenience" deliberated and approved by the executive meeting?
People's Bank of China:
1. Promote the acceptance of overseas bank cards by key venues and key merchants, and effectively improve the bank card acceptance environment.
2. Adhere to the positioning of cash reserves, continue to improve the cash use environment, and continuously improve the level of foreign currency exchange and cash services.
3. Fully consider the special needs of the elderly, foreign visitors and other groups, make arrangements for the elderly, internationalization and other services, and further improve the convenience of mobile payment.
4. 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, and those below designated size must actively create conditions for reference.
5. Banks and payment institutions should further optimize the account opening process, reasonably implement account classification and hierarchical management, and continuously improve the level of account services.
6. Carry out various forms of targeted publicity activities, and continue to strengthen the construction of "soft environment" such as publicity and promotion.
What measures will be introduced to facilitate the payment of foreign visitors to China?
People's Bank of China:
1. In view of the low success rate of using Alipay and WeChat to bind overseas bank cards to China, Alipay and Tenpay are required and guided to optimize business processes and improve the efficiency of card binding.
2. Simplify the arrangement of identity verification, so that it is more convenient for foreign visitors to China to handle a series of processes such as card binding. We are also very concerned about the protection of personal information, and we will strictly require relevant institutions to implement the "Personal Information Protection" and other laws and regulations to effectively protect the security of personal information.
3. Instruct Alipay, Tenpay and other major payment institutions 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.
What measures will be taken to enhance the payment service for inbound tourism?
Ministry of Culture and Tourism:
1. Promote the establishment of software and hardware facilities required to accept mobile payment, bank cards, cash, etc., such as national 4A-level scenic spots, national-level tourist resorts, national-level night-time cultural and tourism consumption clusters, and national-level tourism and leisure blocks, and upgrade payment facilitation for key cultural and tourism scenarios such as tourist attractions, resorts, cultural and museum venues, cultural and entertainment venues, star-rated hotels, and cultural, commercial and tourism complexes.
2. Guide and support Internet platform enterprises closely related to "food, housing, transportation, travel, shopping, and entertainment", and optimize the payment experience of inbound personnel to purchase cultural and tourism products and services online and offline.
3. In terms of the facilitation of ticket purchase and admission to scenic spots, we will promote the retention of artificial windows in tourist attractions, and provide offline ticket purchase and other services for the majority of tourists, including the elderly and inbound tourists, so as to meet the needs of tourists to visit and visit to the greatest extent.
4. Simplify the online ticket purchase and reservation procedures to provide more convenience for tourists.
What has been done to adapt payment services to the elderly?
National Development and Reform Commission:
In solving the problems such as the "digital divide" of mobile payment faced by the elderly in their daily consumption, we will increase the rectification and rectification of discriminatory behaviors such as refusal to accept cash and refuse to pay by bank cards. In 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission 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.
People's Bank of China:
At present, the main mobile payment APP has 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 the country's bank outlets have promoted the transformation of the elderly, through the upgrade of self-service equipment, the establishment of elderly customers "green channel" and "service area" and other measures to facilitate the elderly group to handle payment and settlement business, to create warm outlets.
What measures will be taken to continuously improve and improve the level of transportation and travel services?
Ministry of Transport:
1. Enrich ticket purchase channels. Accelerate the popularization of online ticketing, promote the application of electronic tickets, and facilitate domestic and foreign personnel to purchase tickets online with ID cards, passports, foreigners' permanent residence permits and other documents. At the same time, according to the payment habits of different groups, we will continue to retain the manual ticket window and manual ticket inspection method to facilitate the elderly and foreign friends to purchase tickets offline.
2. Improve payment methods. Actively promote the expansion of payment channels by major domestic online car-hailing platform enterprises, and some enterprises provide foreign friends with the service of "overseas mobile phone number registration + international credit card payment". Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and other cities support foreign friends to bind overseas bank cards through Alipay and UnionPay, and use *** to scan the code to take city buses and rail transit.
3. Optimize the travel environment. Promote the transformation of transportation for the elderly, open low-floor, low-entrance urban buses, equip subway boarding and disembarking barrier-free ferry boards, improve multilingual signs of transportation hubs, and carry out bilingual broadcasting and service guidance on qualified passenger routes and rail transit stations, so as to provide convenience for the elderly and foreign friends to travel. During key periods such as the Spring Festival, some transportation hubs are equipped with special service personnel and volunteers to provide necessary help and guidance for the elderly and foreign friends.
4. Improve service experience. Continue to promote the taxi 95128** car-hailing service and the "one-click ride-hailing" service for online car-hailing, and optimize the car rental process for foreigners. Actively carry out pilot projects of high-quality domestic waterway passenger transport routes to improve the service level of international cruise ships.
What measures will be taken to enhance foreign exchange services?
State Administration of Foreign Exchange:
1. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange will continue to promote more foreign currency exchange agencies to provide better exchange services for foreign visitors to China.
2. Do a good job in ensuring foreign currency exchange services at the airport, and guide the priority of setting up foreign currency exchange institutions and facilities at the arrival gate of the airport.
3. Ensure that important scenarios such as ports and foreign-related hotels have at least one of the five types of foreign currency exchange channels, which are mainly bank outlets with exchange marks, ATMs that support the use of overseas bank cards for cash withdrawal, foreign currency exchange agencies authorized by banks, and individual domestic and foreign currency exchange authorized institutions, and some self-service exchange machines are also arranged to exchange foreign currencies by themselves.
4. Promote the logo of personal domestic and foreign currency exchange in airports, ports, foreign-related hotels and other places.
5. Encourage qualified individual domestic and foreign currency exchange licensing institutions and bank outlets to expand the currency of foreign currency exchange**, so as to better meet the exchange needs of people from different countries and regions in China.
6. Further meet the needs of foreign residents for mobile payment and online consumption, continue to improve the existing business processes, and vigorously support the innovation of various safe and convenient payment service products.
What will be done to optimize payment services for the elderly and foreigners and promote the consumption of living services?
Ministry of Commerce: 1. Promote catering and other industries to improve the payment acceptance environment. We will work with relevant departments to formulate and issue policy documents to promote the high-quality development of the catering industry, and guide local governments to urge relevant catering operators to retain manual services and traditional payment methods, and not refuse to accept RMB cash.
2. Improve the industry standards of the retail industry and provide diversified payment services. Guide retail and other consumer venues to provide cash, bank cards, mobile payment and other diversified payment methods to meet the payment needs of various consumer groups.
3. Give full play to the exemplary and leading role of international consumption center cities. We will guide Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Chongqing and other cities to actively promote the improvement of payment convenience in the process of cultivating and building international consumption center cities, and create a good payment environment where multiple methods can be selected, applied in multiple places, and exchanged in multiple currencies.
*: China**Net.