Online Payments Transactions Processed by Chinese Banks Rise 37.14% YoY in 2019, Mobile Payments up 67.57%

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The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has just released its report on the state of the Chinese payments system in 2019.

Bank accounts

According to PBOC data as of the end of 2019 China was host to a total 11.352 billion bank accounts, for a YoY increase of 12.07%, and an acceleration of 2.24 percentage points compared to the end of the previous year.

As of the end of 2019 there were a total of 68.3687 million entity (danwei) bank accounts opened in China, for a YoY rise of 11.73%, and an acceleration of 0.15 percentage points compared to the end of 2018.

Personal bank accounts totalled 11.284 billion, for a YoY rise of 12.07%, and an acceleration of 2.25 percentage points compared to the end of 2018. China currently has 8.09 bank accounts per capita.

Non-cash payments

In 2019 China processed a total of 331.019 billion non-cash payments transactions worth a total of 3779.49 trillion yuan, for YoY growth of 50.25% and 0.29% respectively.

Bank cards

PBOC data points to steady growth in bank cards, with total issuance of 8.419 billion bank cards in China as of the end of 2019, for YoY growth of 10.82%.

Debit card issuance totalled 7.673 billion cards, for YoY growth of 11.02%, and combined credit and debit card issuance totalled 746 million, for YoY growth of 8.78%.

Debit cards accounted for 91.14% of bank card issuance, for an increase compared to the end of the previous year.

Chinese nationals have 6.03 bank cards per capita, for a YoY rise of 10.40%, while they have 0.54 combined credit and debit cards on average, for a YoY rise of 8.36%.

Bank card processing terminals saw a decline last year. As of the end of 2019 China was host to 23.629 million cross-bank payments system connected merchants, as well as 30.8928 million POS devices and 1.0977 million ATM devices, for declines of 3.7004 million, 3.2554 million and 13,100 respectively.

As of the end of 2019 there were 221.39 POS devices for every ten thousand people in China, for a YoY decline of 9.88%, while there were 7.87 ATM’s for every ten thousand people, for a YoY decline of 1.56%.

Electronic payments

Last year saw rapid growth in mobile payments volumes. In 2019 Chinese banks processed a total of 223.388 billion electronics payments transactions worth 2607.04 trillion yuan in total.

This included 78.185 billion online payments transactions worth 2134.84 trillion yuan, for YoY growth of 37.14% and 0.40% respectively.

China saw 101.431 billion mobile payments transactions in 2019, worth 347.11 trillion yuan, for YoY growth of 67.57% and 25.13% respectively.

Telephone transactions totalled 176 million with a total value of 9.67 trillion yuan, for YoY growth of 11.12% and 25.94% respectively.

In 2019 non-bank payments entities processed a total of 719.998 billion online payments transactions worth 249.88 trillion yuan in total, for YoY growth of 35.69% and 20.10% respectively.

Payments systems

In 2019 China’s payments systems processed a total of 568.612 billion transactions worth 6902.22 trillion yuan in total.

The People’s Bank of China payments system handled a total of 18.017 billion transactions worth 5212.49 trillion yuan, for YoY growth of 14.68% and 13.35% respectively, accounting for 3.17% of the payments system transaction total, and 75.52% of the payments system transaction total value.

The average daily transaction tally was 51.0989 million transactions worth 20.63 trillion yuan.

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