Asia-Pacific · GDP rank #2
China
CN · CNY @ 0.1471/USD
The only major economy where third-party mobile wallets displaced cards as the primary consumer rail. Alipay and WeChat Pay together clear the overwhelming majority of retail volume; UnionPay remains the dominant card network behind the scenes. The e-CNY is the most-piloted retail CBDC in the world but remains a fraction of total flow; the January 2026 framework revision moves it from cash-equivalent toward interest-bearing digital deposit money. State policy since 2020 has reined in big-tech finance and pushed the sector toward regulated, state-supervised infrastructure.
Tab 08
Pulse
The preceding ~90 days of macro, regulation, product, funding and milestone events. Each item is primary-sourced; no trade-press echo.
- 6 days agodata
PBOC keeps LPR unchanged for 12th straight month; payments policy steady
The People's Bank of China kept the one-year loan prime rate at 3.0% and the five-year LPR at 3.5% for a twelfth consecutive month. The accompanying May briefing reiterated that non-bank mobile-payment growth has settled into single digits and that further policy focus is on cross-border RMB rails rather than domestic retail.
- #pboc
- #monetary-policy
- #data
Source: People's Bank of China
- 3 weeks agomilestone
CIPS passes 193 direct participants across 100+ countries
CIPS reported 193 direct and 1,573 indirect participants by end-Q1 2026. 2025 annual business volume reached RMB 175 trillion (about US$24.5 trillion), up 43% year-on-year, with average daily value crossing RMB 650 billion. Singapore's three major banks joined as direct participants during the quarter, deepening Southeast Asian RMB clearing capacity.
- #cips
- #rmb
- #cross-border
Source: CIPS
- 6 weeks agoregulation
PBOC and NFRA publish e-CNY interest-bearing implementing guidance
PBOC and the National Financial Regulatory Administration issued implementing guidance for the interest-bearing e-CNY regime that took effect 1 January 2026. Commercial banks distributing the e-CNY may pay up to 0.05% on real-name wallet balances; e-CNY balances now fall inside the deposit-insurance perimeter, shifting the instrument from cash-equivalent toward a digital-deposit hybrid.
- #e-cny
- #cbdc
- #regulation
- #pboc
Source: Xinhua / State Council
- 2 months agomilestone
e-CNY cumulative value passes ¥16.7T on 3.4B transactions; 180M wallets
PBOC's Q1 2026 payments update put cumulative e-CNY transaction value at ¥16.7 trillion (about US$2.3 trillion) across 3.4 billion transactions and roughly 180 million wallets by end-2025. The pilot now covers 29 cities; PBOC reiterated that no date has been set for nationwide retail rollout.
- #e-cny
- #cbdc
- #pboc
- #milestone
Source: People's Bank of China
- 3 months agolaunch
UnionPay extends transit acceptance to Spain and Portugal via Getnet
Getnet (Santander Group) signed a strategic agreement with UnionPay International to roll out UnionPay acceptance at transit turnstiles and flagship retail in Spain and Portugal. Phased pilots begin Q2 2026; UnionPay's European acceptance now reaches more than 90% of European markets, with QuickPass contactless live at over six million merchants.
- #unionpay
- #europe
- #transit
- #cross-border
Source: Santander / UnionPay International
- 3 months agodata
PBOC: non-bank mobile payment value up 9% to ¥638T in 2024
PBOC's 2024 payment-system annual data put non-bank mobile-payment value at ¥638 trillion, up 9% year-on-year — the slowest rate since the aggregate began publication in 2016. PBOC attributed the deceleration to saturation in urban tier-1 markets and to consolidation under the 2024 Non-Bank Payment Institutions Regulation; rural penetration continues to rise from a lower base.
- #pboc
- #mobile-payments
- #alipay
- #wechat-pay
Source: People's Bank of China