Tuesday, 20 October 2020 02:06

Shenzhen Residents Embrace Digital Currency

On October 12th, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) issued 10-million-yuan worth of digital currency to 50,000 randomly selected residents who had applied to participate in the pilot test. The move is the latest in a series of trials testing out China's new Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP). Those who were successful received digital "hong bao" worth about 200 yuan, which they could download and spend at more than 3,000 stores. The PBOC says it plans to launch DCEP later this year, although it is yet to set a date. The PBOC sees yuan digitalization as a means to internationalize the yuan and reduce China’s dependence on the global dollar payment system.

During the Chinese National Day Holiday (period of October 1st to 8th), the NetsUnion Platform (网联平台) processed a total of 13.39 billion cross-institute online payment transactions with a total amount of 7.23 trillion yuan. The highest transaction volume occurred on October 1, with 1.847 billion transactions processed in a single day. Compared with the National Day holiday last year, the average daily transaction number and average daily transaction value of the network platform increased by 42% and 47% respectively.

On October 9th, Swift launched a pilot “Small Cross-border Remittance” program to provide cross-border remittance services for small and medium-sized enterprises and individual users. Fourteen banking institutions from around the world have so far participated in the project, including Bank of China and Ant Group backed MYBank. Remittance procedures under the program have been designed to be more convenient, and remittance fees will be greatly reduced. In addition, the cross-border remittance networks will be more efficient, with payments received in seconds.

Monday, 12 October 2020 08:44

Alipay Revises its Face Scan Payment Policy

In a push to increase the usage rate of facial payment devices and incentivize merchants to encourage clients to pay with facial recognition, on September 28th, Alipay updated its IoT cooperation rules and subsidy policy. Alipay is currently subsidizing up to 1600 and 2000 yuan on its facial payment devices depending on the type of device. Meanwhile Alipay will also double the subsidies it offers merchants for face scan payments. In related news, WeChat Pay also announced that it had optimized its algorithm to enhance its face scan payment experience.

The PBoC’s Digital Currency Research Institute signed a strategic cooperation agreement with City Commercial Banks Clearing Co. Ltd (城银清算服务有限责任公司) on September 28th. The two parties have agreed to cooperate on digital currency application projects. As one of the main financial infrastructure providers in the payment and clearing field, City Commercial Banks Clearing provides small and medium-sized financial institutions with one-point access services. The next step will see City Commercial Banks Clearing offering commercial and private banks a one-point access service to the digital currency interconnection platform

Cross-border payment solution provider Airwallex announced that it had closed its extended Series D funding with an additional USD40 million. In April, the Hong Kong-based company announced the closure of its USD160 million Series D funding round. This takes the total equity funding raised to date by the company to over USD400 million. Airwallex has said that the additional investment will be used to strengthen its existing footprint in key regions such as the Asia Pacific and Europe, and to build a global digital infrastructure.

The PBoC officially approved China’s largest online travel agency, Ctrip.com’s (携程) application to acquire Shanghai Oriental Information Technology Service Company (东方汇融) on September 26th. The wholly-owned acquisition provides Ctrip.com with the central bank's third-party payment license. Ctrip stated that it hopes that its acquisition can further “improve the convenience of payments in the cultural and tourism industry” and “accelerate the recovery of China’s tourism industry,” which has been badly hit by the Covid pandemic.

Wednesday, 30 September 2020 11:03

Ant Group Unveils Alipay+ for Global Remittances

On September 24th, Eric Jing, the Chairman of Ant Group, introduced “Alipay+” at the Inclusion Fintech Conference in Shanghai, announcing that Ant had launched the solution this year. Alipay+ connects global merchants and e-wallet users. More specifically, Alipay+ works with various e-wallet providers, such as Alipay and South Korea’s Kakaopay, to help merchants receive payments from customers worldwide. South Korean users, for example, can use Kakaopay to pay an overseas merchant in Korean won who will receive the payment in their own currency in real time.

On September 21st, the Chinese government issued its “China (Beijing) Free Trade Pilot Zone General Plan” for the newly created Beijing Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ). Under the plans, the FTZ will support the establishment of a fintech center by the PBOC’s Digital Currency Research Institute; create a statutory digital currency trial zone; create a digital finance system; and form a trade finance blockchain standardization system based on the PBOC’s financial blockchain platform.

Wednesday, 23 September 2020 01:42

JD Digits Plans Acquisition of 99Bill Corp.

 

JD Digits is planning to spend RMB1.6 billion (USD230 million) to obtain a second payment license by acquiring payment platform 99Bill Corp., which is currently controlled by Dalian Wanda Group Co. Ltd. While JD Digits already has a payment license, which allows it to provide card payment transactions services to merchants, it is limited to only Beijing. A second license would allow the company to expand its business nationwide as it seeks to bolster its growing financial services business for brick-and-mortar merchants and small businesses.

 

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