I. Overview of Payment Services in Rural Areas
At end-2018, in the statistics covered rural areas, there were 2,244 administrative counties, 32,000 administrative towns and 531,400 administrative villages, with a population of 968 million.
As of end-2018, in the rural areas, there were 126,600 banking outlets; the number of banking outlets per 10,000 people was 1.31; and the average number per county was 56.41, per town 3.95 and per village 0.24.
II. Overview of Settlement Accounts and Non-Cash Payment
1. Banking Institutions
(1) The number of newly opened bank settlement accounts maintained steady growth, and the number of Category II and III accounts increased rapidly. At end-2018, the total number of corporate settlement accounts in rural areas accumulated to 21.7483 million, up 10.59% yoy. The number of personal bank settlement accounts in rural areas reached 4.305 billion (the number of Category I accounts reached 4.122 billion), up 8.55% yoy and averaging 4.44 accounts per capita. The number of Category II accounts reached 169 million, up 49.36% yoy. The number of Category III accounts reached 13.2928 million, up 37.37% yoy.
(2) The number of bankcards held by rural residents continued to grow. At end-2018, the total number of bankcard reached 3.208 billion, averaging 3.31 cards per capita. In specific, the number of debit cards stood at 2.991 billion, up 11.13% yoy; the number of credit cards amounted to 202 million, up 15.60% yoy; and debit-credit integrated cards totaled 14.3435 million.
(3) Electronic payment services diverged with mobile banking services growing at a slower pace, online banking payment services flat with the previous year, and telephone banking payment services continuing dropping. At end-2018, in rural areas, a cumulative total of 670 million mobile banking accounts were opened, up 29.64% yoy, and 9.387 billion payment transactions worth RMB 52.21 trillion were processed through mobile banking, up 3.04% and 34.26% yoy respectively. Online bank accounts totaled 612 million, up 15.29% yoy; In 2018, 10.208 billion payment transactions were processed through online banking, reporting a modest increase, and the total payment volume was RMB 147.46 trillion, registering a modest decrease. On a cumulative basis, 208 million telephone banking accounts were opened, up 9.57% yoy; 80.8111 million payment transactions involving RMB 92.519 billion were processed through telephone banking, down 17.44% and 23.83% yoy respectively.
(4) Supports to the e-commerce development in rural areas from banking institutions: in 2018, banking institutions provided receivable service to rural e-commerce operators in 495 million transactions amounting to RMB 578.343 billion, up 7.68% and 4.34% yoy respectively.
2. Non-banking Payment Institutions
(1) Mobile payment continued growing rapidly and played an absolutely dominant role in network payment. In 2018, non-banking payment institutions processed 289.802 billion network payment transactions of RMB 76.99 trillion for rural areas, up 104.4% and 71.11% yoy respectively. Specifically, there were 14.918 billion internet transactions of RMB 2.57 trillion, up 21.56% and 22.57% yoy respectively; 274.883 billion mobile payment transactions were processed and worth RMB 74.42 trillion, up 112.25% and 73.48% yoy respectively and accounting for 94.85% and 96.66% respectively in network payment.
(2) Overview of supports to e-commerce development in rural areas: in 2018, non-banking payment institutions provided receivable services in 532 million transactions involving RMB 262.631 billion, up 92.53% and 46.58% yoy respectively.
III. Overview of Payment and Clearing System Coverage
1. Coverage of the PBC-operated payment systems: at end-2018, 95,800 banking outlets and 27,100 banking agent outlets in rural areas had access to the PBC-operated payment system, their total number reaching 122,900, and the coverage ratio reaching 97.05%, up 0.26 percentage point compared with the previous year.
2. Business processed by Rural Credit Banks Payment and Clearing System (RCBPCS) maintained a rapid growth. At end-2018, 44,758 banking outlets had access to the RCBPCS as participants, basically covering all outlets of cooperative financial institutions such as rural credit cooperatives. In 2018, a total of 8.451 billion payment transactions in rural areas were processed by RCBPCS, valuing RMB 8.45 trillion, up 152.34% and 26.58% yoy respectively, thus maintaining a rapid growth.
IV. Bank Card Acceptance Market Development
1. Total number of rural merchants increased constantly. At end-2018, there were 5.5402 million merchants in rural areas, up 5.26% yoy.
2. The number of ATMs saw a sluggish growth, and the number and volume of payment transactions both reported a modest decrease. At end-2018, there were 380,400 ATMs in rural areas, up 0.82% yoy. The average number of ATMs per 10,000 people was 3.93. In 2018, rural ATMs processed 12.406 billion payment transactions totaling RMB 21.96 trillion, down 7.98% and 4.73% yoy respectively. The number of payment transactions per capita per year was 12.81.
3. The number of POS terminals and the amount of payment transactions processed at POS terminals were flat with the previous year, while the total volume dropped. At end-2018, the number of POS terminals in rural areas was 7.1562 million, up 0.58% yoy. The number of POS terminals per 10,000 people was 73.90. In 2018, the number of POS-handled payment transactions increased slightly by 2.29% to 2.514 billion, and the total volume fell by 7.76% to RMB 6.79 trillion. The number of payment transactions per capita per year was 2.60.
4. The number of innovative devices including self-service terminals and their volume of transactions was flat with the previous year. At end-2018, there were 180,400 self-service terminals other than ATMs and POS, including multimedia terminals in rural areas, a slight decrease of 1.06% from a year earlier. In 2018, the number of payment transactions processed by these innovative devices was 506 million, and the total volume stood at RMB 2.23 trillion, both flat with the previous year. The number of devices for every 10,000 people was 1.86; and the number of transaction per capita per year was 0.52.
V. Progress of Convenient Money Withdrawal by Farmers Project
1. The full coverage of the Convenient Money Withdrawal Service ran smoothly in all administrative villages, with constant improvement of its structure, and the total volume of transactions was flat with the previous year. At end-2018, in rural areas, the number of “Convenient Money Withdrawal by Farmers” service points reached 864,900 (including 206,100 with e-commerce functions), covering 522,000 administrative villages, or 98.23% of the total. The average number owned by each village was 1.63. In 2018, these service points processed 463 million payment transactions (including withdrawal, remittance and charge agency), with a total volume of RMB 361.869 billion, basically flat with the previous year.
2. Withdrawal service reported a growth and still accounted for about half of the total number of payment transactions processed by the service points. In 2018, these service points processed 249 million withdrawals made in rural areas with a volume of RMB 128.818 billion, up 10.5% and 11.12% yoy respectively. The number of withdrawals accounted for nearly half of the total number of payment transactions. The total number of query transactions was at 210 million. The query to withdrawal ratio was 5:6, indicating a high frequency of the query business.
3. The amount of remittance service was flat with the previous year while both the number and volume of transactions of charge agency service reported a negative growth. In 2018, the number of remittance (including cash remittance and transfer remittance) made at the withdrawal service points in rural areas was 129 million, with a slight increase of 4.3%, and the total volume stood at RMB 221.508 billion, down 6.31% yoy. There were 85.2895 million transactions of charge agency service with a total volume of RMB 11.543 billion, down 16.29% and 10.13% yoy respectively.
4. The average volume of each transaction of various payment services. In 2018, the average volume of each payment transaction at the service points in rural areas was RMB 781.78, among which the average volume of the remittance, withdrawal and charge agency services were RMB 1,716.08, RMB 518.36 and RMB 135.34 respectively.
5. The average number of transactions in each service point and the number of transaction per capita for various services appeared no significant changes compared with the previous year. In 2018, the average number of transactions of payment services at each service point in rural areas was 1.47 per day. As for each service, the number of transactions of the withdrawal, remittance and charge agency services were 0.79, 0.41 and 0.27 per day. The number of payment transactions per capita in one year at the service points was 0.48, among which that of the withdrawal, remittance and charge agency services were 0.26, 0.13 and 0.09 per year respectively.
VI. Overview of Non-Cash Payment as Agent Institutions
In 2018, banking institutions and non-banking payment institutions processed 2.125 billion transactions in non-cash social security payments and rural fiscal subsidies to deposit books and bankcards of rural recipients, acting as payment agents of Urban and Rural Pension Insurance (including new pension insurance for rural residents and social insurance for urban residents), New Rural Cooperative Medical System (NCMS), and the relevant fiscal authorities. The total volume of these agent payment transactions reached RMB 830.869 billion, basically flat with the previous year. The transactions included 1.414 billion transactions in payments of RMB 447.557 billion by Urban and Rural Pension Insurance; 133 million transactions in payments of RMB 63.062 billion by the NCMS; and 577 million transactions in payments of RMB 320.249 billion as rural fiscal subsidies.
