Recently, a WTO dispute panel, in response to the recent US complaint, said China is breaking the WTO rules by maintaining CUP as a monopoly supplier for the clearing of certain types of RMB-denominated payment card transactions. The specific areas where the panel determined that China had discriminated against foreign bank card suppliers are that 1) China requires all payment cards issued in China to work with the CUP network and to carry its logo, and 2) China forces all payment terminals to accept CUP network.

Trend 1: Fourth Round of Payment Licenses

If you remember from our previous commentaries, in 2011, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) mandated that any company providing payment products or services be licensed in order to operate. This brought a much needed dose of regulation to what was previously quite an unregulated industry. Since then, 4 rounds of payment licenses have been approved, the last being on June 28th, when another 95 payment companies qualified to provide payment products and services in China.

According to public information on the official website of Jumio, this fast-growing payment and online ID verification company based in California will be announcing additional deals with customers in Asia later this year. This is a signal for the firm’s ambition and interest in entering the Asian online payment markets, among which China is of significant importance.

BlackRock recently announced the view that emerging stock markets such as China which have underperformed till early this year, are set to take off in the second half of 2012 thanks to the strong economic growth, slowing inflation, less volatility, and cheaper valuation.

According to PBOC (the People’s Bank of China), driven by the proliferation of online banking in China, in 2011 the total online payment transaction value reached 700 trillion RMB, with a 33% growth rate.

On June 16th, 2012, China Telecom, one of three mobile network operations in China, announced that its total mobile payment transaction value in 2012 researched 17 billion RMB, already exceeding the total amount of last year.

Recently Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission, the main financial regulator, said it had approved applications submitted by Bank of China and Bank of Communications to establish branches in Taipei. The banks will only be allowed to engage in limited business in the country, e.g. can only accept deposits higher than NT$3 million (US$100,350), only provide corporate loans. Further, the banks will need to receive approval from Taiwan's central bank if they wish to engage in f/x.

According to China’s Credit Card Report of 2011, the total number of credit card reached 290 million and the total value of consumption by credit card was 4.1 trillion RMB in 2011, accounting for 22.6% of China’s total retail sales of consumer goods. In recent years, credit card consumption has experienced rapid growth benefiting increased consumer consumption as well as improvements in convenience and security.

According to China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange, as of May 2012, the number of Qualified Foreign Institution Investors reached 141, and the total investment quota of QFII reached 26 billion USD. The latest news from China’s securities authorities showed that the QFII investment quota would be increased to 80 billion USD.  

According to China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange, as of April 2012, the total QDII investment quota reached 76.4 billion USD, and the number of Qualified Domestic Institution Investors reached 98. The institutions consist of fund management companies, insurance companies, commercial banks, securities companies and trusts. Among them, fund companies' quota represented 56.1% of the total quota, reaching 42.9 billion USD. Insurance companies accounted for 26.3% or 20.1 billion USD, commercial banks were 12.4% and 9.5 billion USD. Securities companies could invest 2.2 billion USD, the proportion was 2.9%. The proportion of trust company was the minimum about 2.3%, reached 1.8 billion USD. From the above, we can see Funds and insurances held the dominant position in the total quota.