According to payment statistics in 2017, the national payment system run smoothly as the payment volume maintained a steady growth.
I. Non-cash Payment Instruments
In 2017, a total of 160.88 billion non-cash payment transactions[2] were handled in China, a year-on-year growth rate of 28.59%, involving RMB 3,759.94 trillion, a year-on-year growth rate of 1.97%.
(I) Notes
Notes-based business kept decreasing. In 2017, China closed 256 million notes-based transactions with an amount of RMB 172.37 trillion, a year-on-year decrease of 12.79% in volume and 8.21% in amount respectively. Among these transactions, 237 million were made in checks with an amount of RMB 153.81 trillion, a year-on-year decrease of 13.09% in volume and 7.23% in amount respectively; 16.48 million in commercial drafts with an amount of RMB 16.77 trillion, a year-on-year decrease of 0.49% in volume and 11.48% in amount respectively; 527,300 in bank drafts with an amount of RMB 364.48 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 65.54% and 61.65% respectively; 1.65 million in bank promissory notes with an amount of RMB 1.42 trillion, a year-on-year decrease of 29.77% and 31.92% respectively.
The transactions of electronic commercial draft system grew rapidly. In 2017, the electronic commercial draft system completed 6.55 million transactions of issuance, with an amount of RMB 12.68 trillion, up by 184.38% and 52.02% respectively year on year; 6.78 million transactions of acceptance, with an amount of RMB 13.02 trillion, up by 185.17% and 51.75% respectively year on year; 1.79 million transactions of discount, with an amount of RMB 6.95 trillion, up by 113.96% and 20.50% respectively year on year; 5.03 million transactions of re-discount, with an amount of RMB 44.48 trillion, up by 62.71% and down by 2.89% respectively year on year; 440,000 transactions of bond pledged repo, with an amount of RMB 6.92 trillion, up by 181.20% and 104.90% respectively year on year[3].
(II) Bank Cards
The bank card issuance grew steadily. By the end of 2017, the number of bank cards in use reached 6.69 billion, a year-on-year growth of 9.27%. Among these, 6.11 billion were debit cards, a year-on-year growth of 7.87%; 588 million were credit cards and debit & credit cards, a year-on-year growth of 26.35%. The proportion of debit cards in use among bank cards in use reached 91.22%, registering a slight decrease compared with the previous year. The bank cards per capita were 4.84[4], a year-on-year growth of 8.35%; specifically, per capita credit card(s) reached 0.39, a year-on-year growth of 25.82%.
The bank card acceptance continued to improve. By the end of 2017, 25.93 million merchants, 31.19 million POS terminals and 960,600 ATM terminals were connected to the interbank bank card payment system, increasing by 5.25 million, 6.65 million and 36,400 over the previous year. The number of POS terminals per 10,000 persons reached 225.56, with a year-on-year increase of 26.04%, and number of ATM terminals per 10,000 persons was 6.95, with a year-on-year increase of 3.06%.
Bank card transactions kept growing. In 2017, a total of 149.43 billion bank card transactions[5] were processed across the country, a year-on-year growth rate of 29.41%; involving RMB 761.65 trillion, a year-on-year growth rate of 2.67%, with average daily transactions of 409 million in volume and RMB 2.09 trillion in amount. To break it down, there were 9.64 billion in cash deposit transactions amounting to RMB 67.92 trillion, a year-on-year decrease of 7.95% and 11.99% respectively; 17.32 billion in cash withdrawal transactions amounting to RMB 65.07 trillion, a year-on-year decrease of 3.78% and 0.65% respectively; 63.85 billion transfer transactions amounting to RMB 559.99 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 31.17% and 3.20% respectively; 58.63 billion consumption transactions totaling RMB 68.67 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 52.96% and 21.54% respectively. The bank card penetration rate in 2017 reached 48.71%, up by 0.24 percentage points year on year; consumption per bank card stood at RMB 10,300, a year-on-year increase of 11.22%; consumption per transaction via bank cards reached RMB 1,171.24, a year-on-year decrease of 20.54%.
The bank card credit continued to expand. By the end of the 2017, the total credit granting via bank cards[6] reached RMB 12.48 trillion, a year-on-year growth of 36.58%; the outstanding balance of bank card credit was RMB 5.56 trillion, a year-on-year growth of 36.83%. The credit line per bank card was RMB 21,200, with the credit utilization rate[7] of 44.54%. The total outstanding overdue of credit card for more than half a year reached RMB 66.31 billion at 1.26% of total outstanding credit balance, down 0.14 percentage points from the end of the previous year.
(III) Other Settlement Transactions Including Credit Transfers
Credit transfers and other settlement transactions kept growing. In 2017, the number of other settlement transactions including credit transfer, direct debit, collection with acceptance and domestic L/C was 11.19 billion, a year-on-year growth of 19.77%, involving RMB 2,825.92 trillion, a year-on-year growth rate of 2.48%. Specially, the credit transfer transactions reached 9.667 billion, totaling RMB 2,780.67 trillion.
(IV) Electronic Payment
The payment transactions by mobile grew at a faster rate. In 2017, banking financial institutions processed a total of 152.58 billion electronic payment transactions[8]of RMB 2,419.20 trillion. Specially, the online payment transactions reached 48.58 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5.20%, involving an amount of RMB 2,075.09 trillion, a year-on-year decrease of 0.47%; the payment transactions by mobile stood at 37.55 billion of RMB 202.93 trillion, up by 46.06% and 28.80% respectively year on year; the payment transactions by phone were 160 million of RMB 8.78 trillion, year-on-year decreases of 42.58% and 48.56% respectively.
In 2017, non-bank payment agencies processed 286.75 billion payment transactions[9] through online amounting to RMB 143.26 trillion, jumping up 74.95% and 44.32% respectively year on year.
II. Payment Systems
In 2017, the payment systems[10] processed a total of 77.33 billion payment transactions in payments of RMB 5,414.25 trillion, up by 30.44% and 5.86% respectively year on year.
(I) PBC Payment System
In 2017, the PBC payment system[11] processed 12.29 billion transactions in payments of RMB 3,964.57 trillion, up by 53.44% and 3.75% respectively year on year, accounting for 15.89% and 73.22% of the total respectively. The daily processed transactions averaged 35.28 million and daily processed amount averaged RMB 15.68 trillion[12].
The processed transactions in the large-value real-time payment system (LVPS) continued its steady growth. In 2017, the LVPS processed 932 million transactions in RMB 3,731.86 trillion of payments, up by 12.89% and 3.20% year on year respectively. The daily transactions averaged 3.71 million in volume and RMB 14.87 trillion in amount.
The payments processed by the bulk electronic payment system (BEPS) experienced continued growth. In 2017, the BEPS processed 2.53 billion transactions of RMB 33.14 trillion, up by 7.63% and 7.22% year on year respectively. The daily average transaction reached 6.92 million in volume and RMB 90.81 billion in amount.
The transaction volume of online interbank clearing system grew rapidly. In 2017, the online interbank payment and clearing system processed 8.46 billion transactions of RMB 61.72 trillion, up by 90.07% and 64.76% year on year respectively. On a daily average basis, the system processed 23.19 million transactions of RMB 169.10 billion.
The transaction volume of intra-city clearing system (ICCS) increased slightly. In 2017, the ICCS[13] processed 359 million transactions in payments of RMB 130.85 trillion, the former down by 3.61% and the latter up by 0.03% year on year. On a daily basis, the system processed 1.43 million transactions of RMB 521.32 billion.
The transaction volume of onshore foreign currency payment system edged up. In 2017, the system processed 2.02 million transactions of USD 1.01 billion (equivalent to about RMB 6.75 trillion[14]), a year-on-year increase of 1.55% and 22.84% respectively. On a daily basis, the system processed 8,034.26 transactions of USD 4.01 billion (equivalent to about RMB 26.88 billion).
The cheque image system (CIS) was integrated into BEPS. Since September 4, 2017, all banking financial institutions processed their CIS transactions by BEPS uniformly. From January 1 to September 3, 2017, the CIS processed 4.44 million transactions of RMB 245.69 billion with daily average transactions of 18,000 of RMB 999 million.
(II) Other Payment Systems
The transaction volume of the intra-bank payment systems of banking financial institutions continued to grow. In 2017, these systems processed 32.31 billion transactions of RMB 1,333.69 trillion, up by 25.10% and 9.73% year on year respectively. The daily average processed transactions reached 885.30 million of RMB 3.65 trillion.
The transaction volume of interbank bank card payment system grew steadily. In 2017, it processed 29.35 billion transactions of RMB 93.85 trillion, up by 23.51% and 39.93% year on year respectively. On average, the system processed 80.40 million transactions each day in payments of RMB 257.12 billion.
The transaction volume of urban commercial bank draft processing system and payment & clearing system enjoyed rapid growth. In 2017, they processed 33.11 million transactions[15] of RMB 916.26 billion. The daily average transactions reached 90,700 of RMB 2.51 billion.
The transaction volume of rural credit bank payment & clearing system maintained swift growth. In 2017, the system processed 3.35 billion transactions of RMB 6.67 trillion, up by 99.23% and 22.99% year on year respectively. In average, the system processed 9.18 million transactions of RMB 18.29 billion each day.
The transaction volume of RMB cross-border interbank payment system (CIPS) soared. In 2017, the CIPS processed 1.26 million transactions in payments of RMB 14.55 trillion, up by 97.92% and 233.67% year on year respectively. The daily transactions averaged 5,056.22 in payments of RMB 58.45 billion.
The NetsUnion platform started well in its trial operation. As of the end of 2017, a total of 248 commercial banks and 65 payment institutions were connected to the platform. The payment institutions switched their online payment transactions involving bank accounts from original direct connection channels to the platform orderly.
III. RMB Bank Settlement Account
As of the end of 2017, the RMB bank settlement accounts totaled 9.22 billion, up by 10.43% year on year, a deceleration of 2.91 percentage points from the previous year.
(I) Institutional Bank Settlement Accounts
The number of bank settlement accounts held by institutions maintained a general growth. The proportion of basic deposit accounts in institutional bank settlement accounts edged up, and the number of temporary deposit accounts kept shrinking. At end of 2017, bank settlement accounts opened by institutions totaled 54.83 million, up by 11.01% year on year, representing a deceleration of 0.26 percentage points. Among these accounts, 37.92 million were basic deposit accounts, up by 15.53% year on year; 13.31 million were general deposit accounts, up by 1.87% year on year; 3.41 million were specified deposit accounts, up by 3.32% year on year; and 190,500 temporary deposit accounts, down by 5.08% year on year. They account for 69.16%, 24.28%, 6.22% and 0.35% of the total number of entity-opened bank settlement accounts respectively.
(II) Individual Bank Settlement Accounts
The number of individual bank settlement accounts grew steadily. At end of 2017, the bank settlement accounts opened by individuals totaled 9.17 billion, up by 10.42% yoy, though a deceleration of 2.93 percentage points from growth of the previous year.
[1] Since 2015, the payment system has disclosed payment transaction data according to the financial industry standard of “Statistical Indicator of Payment Transactions”.
[2] Non-cash payment transactions include notes, bank cards, and other settlement transactions. Specifically, other settlement transactions include credit transfer, direct debit, collection with acceptance and domestic L/C transactions.
[3] Since Q3 2017, the statistics of re-discount and bond pledged repo are collected separately, and the year-on-year data calculated according to a comparable terms.
[4] When indicators refer to per capita figures, the total population of 1.38271 billion of China mainland released by the National Bureau of Statistics at the end of 2016 shall be applied, similarly hereinafter.
[5] Bank card transactions were the sum of both RMB and foreign currency transactions.
[6] Total bank card credit granting means the sum of credit granted through credit cards and credit & debit cards.
[7] The credit granting utilization rate is the ratio of outstanding bank card credit balance to total credit granting.
[8] Electronic payment refers to the transactions and their amounts of account changes initiated by customers from settlement accounts by six transaction types such as online banking, telephone banking, mobile banking, ATM, POS and other electronic channels.
[9] The online payment transaction volume processed by non-bank payment institutions doesn’t include the transaction volume of red envelopes and similar entertainment products.
[10] Includes LVPS, BEPS, online payment interbank clearing system, ICCS, DFCPS, CIS, intra-bank payment systems of banking financial institutions, bank card interbank payment system, city commercial banks draft processing system and payment & clearing system, rural credit banks payment & clearing system, CIPS.
[11] Includes LVPS, BEPS, online payment interbank clearing system, ICCS, DFCPS, CIS.
[12] In 2017, LVPS operated for 251 business days; BEPS operated for 365 business days; online payment interbank clearing system operated for 365 business days; ICCS operated for 251 business days; DFCPS operated for 251 business days; and CIS for 246 business days. The actual operation business days are used for calculation of daily averages, similarly hereinafter.
[13] ICCS includes the intra-city notes exchange system and intra-city electronic clearing system.
[14] The transaction volume of DFCPS was calculated and then converted to RMB according to the exchange rate of the last trading day of each quarter.
[15] Since 2017, the city commercial banks draft processing system and payment & clearing system covered the bank drafts, remittance, universal deposit and withdrawal as well as real-time collection payment transactions.
