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 03
Rails & infrastructure
The instant rail, the RTGS spine, the card switch, the direct-debit scheme, and the country's CBDC stance. Each rail is reported with operator, launch year, and 2024 flow so the relative scale across rails is readable at a glance.
CBDC status is deliberately granular: live, pilot, preparation, live stalled, and sceptical, no pilot are different things.
Largest retail CBDC pilot in the world by scale. 29 pilot cities. Cumulative transaction value ¥16.7T (US$2.3T) across 3.4B transactions and ~180M wallets by Nov 2025. Two-tier architecture (PBOC issues to commercial banks, who distribute). The January 2026 framework revision introduces a 0.05% interest rate on real-name wallets and brings e-CNY under deposit insurance, positioning it as digital deposit money rather than cash-equivalent. Parallel wholesale work runs via BIS Innovation Hub's Project mBridge (PBOC withdrew from mBridge as full member in late 2024 but continues bilateral work).
Instant payments
NetsUnion Clearing Corporation / IBPS (Internet Banking Payment System)
The instant leg typically carries the vast majority of retail consumer flow in modern payment systems — and sits in direct tension with card networks and wallets for the same transactions.
- Operator
- NetsUnion Clearing Corporation (PBOC-supervised)
- Live since
- 2017-03-31
Transactions · 2024
txns/year · 2023
NUCC clears all third-party-wallet transactions; volumes dominated by Alipay/WeChat flows.
Cleared value · 2024
CNY/year · 2023
Participating institutions
institutions · 2024
Down from peak of ~270 pre-2020 consolidation.
Alias registrations
users · 2024
No standardised national alias directory akin to PayID; aliasing is wallet-native.
Rail features
- ▌All third-party-wallet flows routed through NUCC (no bilateral bank-wallet clearing)
- ▌24/7/365 clearing
- ▌QR code is the dominant merchant-facing interface, not NFC
- ▌e-CNY runs parallel on a two-tier PBOC-issued architecture
RTGS
Real-time gross settlement
The RTGS spine clears high-value interbank flow — including the settlement of the instant-rail cycles and card-network net positions. Transaction count is modest; cleared value is enormous.
Transactions · 2024
txns/year · 2023
Cleared value · 2024
CNY/year · 2023
Open banking
Regulatory and technical posture
- Regime
- No formal open-banking mandate; data sharing via Personal Information Protection Law
Formal open banking API consents
2024
China has no PSD2-equivalent. Data portability rights sit under PIPL (2021).
N/A
2024
Full reference