China Payment and Clearing Association: 2022 China Payment Industry Annual Report

From the perspective of payment market players, as of the end of 2021 , there are more than 4,300 licensed institutions engaged in payment, clearing and settlement services in China, mainly including banking financial institutions, financial companies, non-bank payment institutions, infrastructure operating institutions, etc. In addition, there are a large number of upstream and downstream institutions such as outsourcing service agencies, financial technology companies, software and hardware equipment providers, and testing and certification agencies.

Among them, banking institutions are the cornerstone of the high-quality development of the payment industry. As of the end of 2021 , there were 4,096 banking institutions in China , with a total of 13.664 billion accounts opened and 59.33 million merchants served. Payment institutions are deeply involved in the retail payment market. As of the end of 2021 , there were 224 legal entities of payment institutions in China , with a total of 1,569 branches and 49,400 employees , and a total of 5.7 billion active payment accounts opened for customers . Overall, the financial stability of payment institutions in 2021 has increased significantly compared with the previous year, and more than 70% of institutions have achieved profitability.

In terms of payment business, in 2021 , banks handled a total of 439.516 billion non-cash payment transactions with a total amount of 441.556 trillion yuan, an increase of 23.90% and 10.03% respectively over the previous year , and the growth rate of business amount increased by 3.85 percentage points over the previous year; payment institutions completed a total of 113.962 billion payment transactions (including online payment, bank card acquiring, and prepaid card transactions) with a total amount of 416.73 trillion yuan, an increase of 29.48% and 17.17% respectively over the previous year .

Specifically, in terms of online payment business, in 2021 , the number and amount of online payment transactions processed by China's banking institutions were 5.32 times and 2.86 times that of 2012 , respectively . The number and amount of mobile payment transactions processed were 282.67 times and 228.13 times that of 2012 , respectively . In 2021 , the scale of online payment continued to grow, and banking institutions still dominated.

As of the end of 2021 , the scale of online payment users in China reached 904 million, an increase of 49.29 million from the end of 2020 , accounting for 87.6% of the total number of netizens . The total number of online payment customers of the association's banking members was 2.257 billion, an increase of 3.82% over the previous year ; the number of mobile payment customers was 3.781 billion, an increase of 7.91% over the previous year . The total number of payment accounts opened by payment institutions for customers was 5.7 billion, an increase of 10.42% over the previous year .

In addition, in terms of bank card business, as of the end of 2021 , the number of bank cards in use nationwide was 9.257 billion, an increase of 3.26% over the previous year. The number and amount of bank card transactions increased by 24.20% and 12.85% respectively over the previous year , among which consumer transactions grew the most significantly.