The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has called for increased reform of the Chinese payments sector including greater adoption of mobile payments.
On 29 March PBOC convened a payments and settlement work teleconference which called for “deepening reform and opening of the payments sector, accelerated structural optimisation and upgrade of the payments and clearance market, and driving high-quality growth of the payments sector.”
PBOC also called for “comprehensive promotion of mobile payments applications, pragmatic protection of the lawful rights and interests of payments consumers, and upgrade of the effective supply of payments services.”
Data from Wind indicates that in 2018 the total value of China’s mobile payments transactions reached 277.3 trillion yuan, for a YoY rise of 36.69%.
Alipay and Tencent continue to dominate the market, with the “China Third Party Mobile Payments Market Quarterly Monitoring Report for Q4 2018” (中国第三方支付移动支付市场季度监测报告2018年第4季度) indicating that Alipay held a 53.78% market share in the final quarter of last year while Tencent Finance (including Tenpay) had a 38.87% market share, for a combined share of 92.65%.
