On September 12th, China UnionPay and Visa released the "High-Quality Development of Bank Card Organizations Promoting Payment Industry Services to the Real Economy" report, which systematically analyzed global and Chinese payment industry development trends. The report confirms that China's payment industry has gradually formed an ecosystem characterized by "globally leading scale, deep technological penetration, and diverse coexistence structure."
Hao Zhe, Party Committee Member and Executive Vice President of China UnionPay, emphasized at the report launch that payment, as financial infrastructure, not only concerns public payment experience and convenience but also involves social capital flow, international trade, and even national financial security. He stated, "Currently, I believe our country's payment industry has entered a new development stage."
**Global Payment Industry Transformation Accelerates, China Shows New Ecosystem of Diverse Integration**
The report indicates that as the global economic and trade landscape enters a new evolutionary stage, the global payment industry is undergoing profound transformation. Payment systems exhibit parallel trends of "regionalization" and "infrastructuralization," with real-time payment systems and regional interconnectivity accelerating. Technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, blockchain, and biometric recognition are being rapidly applied, profoundly reshaping payment processes and user experiences.
From a global perspective, payment industry development presents four major trends: First, under the backdrop of global economic and trade landscape restructuring, payment systems exhibit coexisting fragmentation and infrastructuralization; Second, explosive evolution of new technologies including artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, blockchain, and biometric recognition has reshaped payment processes and experiences; Third, focus on regulatory consistency and implementation of penetrative supervision; Fourth, rapid development of new business models such as account-to-account payments, buy-now-pay-later, and cryptocurrency wallet payments.
Against this backdrop of development and transformation, China's payment industry has achieved global leadership in mobile payment convenience, efficiency, and user satisfaction through continuous innovation, while also deepening market opening and cooperation in the clearing sector. Cooperation between China UnionPay and international card organizations like Visa has significantly strengthened, jointly promoting multiple cross-border payment facilitation initiatives.
The report analyzes that during this process, China's payment industry development exhibits four distinct characteristics:
First, parallel issuance of physical and digital cards has become the mainstream model. Although the term "bank card industry" is still used, card formats have undergone subtle changes. Today, digital wallets have become core payment tools for users due to their convenience, working alongside physical cards to meet payment needs in different scenarios, a trend highly aligned with global payment industry development.
Second, multiple payment methods achieve multi-scenario coverage. Currently, various payment methods including card swiping, QR codes, contactless (NFC, HCE), palm scanning, and facial recognition develop together, widely applied in high-frequency small-amount transaction scenarios such as retail shopping and transportation, gaining consumer favor. Particularly in retail mobile payments, China has achieved global leadership in service convenience, efficiency, and consumer satisfaction through dual driving forces from both supply and demand sides. Whether providing convenient payment services for foreigners visiting China or ensuring payment needs for elderly people in rural areas, all parties have formed synergy.
Third, diverse market entities develop collaboratively. Commercial banks, card organizations, non-bank payment institutions, and service providers each perform their roles while cooperating closely. Card organizations play a crucial connecting role, promoting industry standardization and regulation through cooperation platforms, while significantly improving overall industry operational efficiency through supporting interconnectivity, optimizing clearing processes, and reducing clearing costs. Notably, China UnionPay has improved foreign-related payment environments through the "Jinxiu Action" and cooperated with overseas card organizations like Visa to support subway card-tapping services for foreign cards in cities like Beijing, further enhancing payment convenience.
Fourth, payment clearing markets deepen opening and cooperation. Card organizations continuously expand cooperation breadth and depth, strengthening collaboration in product innovation, scenario co-construction, and joint risk prevention and control. According to introductions, in 2025, China UnionPay and Visa jointly promoted with commercial banks the upgrade of dual-standard bank cards from magnetic stripe to chip cards, effectively improving card transaction experiences. Both parties also jointly created the "Beijing Central Axis Barrier-Free Payment Service Tourism Demonstration Zone," facilitating inbound payment convenience and providing strong support for cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries.
**Payment Industry Still Faces Challenges During Transformation Period**
According to the report, while China's payment industry has achieved significant accomplishments, the industry currently faces multiple challenges.
First, the industry has transitioned from the "land-grabbing" scale expansion stage to the "structural transformation" stage. In the process of moving from a payment giant to a payment powerhouse, more attention needs to be paid to structural optimization and development quality.
Second, development remains unbalanced between account-side and acceptance-side, with small and medium-sized acquiring institutions facing considerable pressure in pricing mechanisms and sustainable operations.
Meanwhile, under evolving global patterns, payment industry globalization requires strengthened coordination. In promoting payment industry "group overseas expansion" and cross-border interconnectivity, top-level design and coordination at government and industry levels still need strengthening.
Additionally, domestic mainstream barcode payments still lack unified rules and standards, and payment method interconnectivity still has room for improvement, all becoming factors constraining further industry development.
**Card Organizations Leading Innovation**
Facing industry transformation and challenges, card organizations represented by China UnionPay and Visa are actively transforming, exploring paths for high-quality payment industry development through technological innovation and ecosystem construction.
Modern card organizations have far exceeded traditional fund clearing channels. Leveraging fund transfer links, card organizations continuously expand functions in information processing, traffic guidance, and value-added product services, comprehensively enhancing service capabilities.
In scenario integration, card organizations actively couple deeply with high-frequency scenarios such as e-commerce platforms, transportation, government fee payments, and healthcare, launching specialized payment services. For example, China UnionPay designs differentiated payment solutions around scenarios like home appliance "trade-in" and cultural tourism, precisely meeting government "consumption promotion" policy needs, exploring innovative paths to serve financial "five major articles," helping release consumption potential and promote economic development. UnionPay also deepens payment applications of new technologies including artificial intelligence, privacy computing, and Internet of Things, promoting global payment ecosystem construction through measures like standard mutual recognition and cross-border interconnectivity. In the transformation path amid global payment industry transformation, Visa is also transitioning from traditional four-party model clearing networks toward open ecosystem platforms, connecting multiple payment rails, reconstructing the entire payment and capital flow chain, forming a multi-engine pattern of "consumer payments + business payments and capital flows + value-added services."
Hao Zhe, Party Committee Member and Executive Vice President of China UnionPay, stated at the launch that payment, as financial infrastructure, not only concerns public payment experience and convenience but also involves social capital flow, international trade, and even national financial security.
He emphasized that currently, China's payment industry is entering a new development stage: First, the high-level opening process of the payment industry is further improving quality and accelerating; Second, a market pattern of diverse integration and mutual promotion has initially formed; Third, new technologies are reconstructing payment processes and bringing entirely new service experiences. In the future, only by continuously promoting industry collaboration, strengthening technology application, and deepening international cooperation can high-quality development of the payment industry be achieved, truly supporting the real economy's advancement to new levels.