CCTV News:On March 1st, the State Council Press Office held a routine briefing on the State Council policy. Relevant officials of the People’s Bank of China and the National Development and Reform Commission introduced the Opinions on Further Optimizing Payment Services and Improving Payment Convenience. According to the People’s Bank of China, there are three major problems in the payment inconvenience of foreign workers in China, and through comprehensive measures, phased results have been achieved. In the next step, the People’s Bank of China will further cooperate with relevant departments, intensify its work and further improve the quality and efficiency of payment services.
Zhang Qingsong, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, said that the first difficulty for foreigners coming to China to pay in China is that the overseas bank card payment rate is much higher than the domestic bank card payment rate. The second difficulty is that there are fewer merchants accepting overseas bank cards now, and the third difficulty is that merchants sometimes have no change.
In view of these problems, the People’s Bank of China has put forward a special work plan. On the one hand, according to accelerating the acceptance of merchants opening overseas bank cards, at the same time, optimizing the service of opening bank accounts for foreigners in China, and promoting overseas bank cards to be more conveniently bound to Alipay or WeChat.
According to statistics, nearly 4 million immigrants used mobile payment in 2023, and the actual number of transactions exceeded 70 million. At present, the coverage rate of foreign cards accepted by key merchants in Shanghai and Zhejiang has exceeded 90%. In the next step, SAFE will further optimize foreign currency exchange services.
Liu Bin, director of the current account management department of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said: We should do a good job in ensuring foreign currency exchange services at airports, guide foreign currency exchange institutions and facilities to be set up first at the airport arrival, and encourage qualified individual foreign currency exchange franchises and bank outlets to expand the currency supply of foreign currency exchange, so as to better meet the exchange needs of people from different countries and regions.
Payment facilitation upgrade will be carried out for key cultural travel scenes.
In order to facilitate the payment of overseas tourists visiting China, at the routine briefing on the State Council policy held by the State Council Press Office on March 1, the heads of relevant departments of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said that with the support of the People’s Bank of China, they would actively promote the optimization of the entry payment environment.
The person in charge of the International Exchange and Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said that at present, Beijing is promoting the upgrading of the acceptance capacity of foreign cards in key business districts, scenic spots, parks, hotels and other important scenes in the city, and has established demonstration zones for payment services for overseas guests at Capital International Airport and Daxing International Airport. Shanghai is deploying and promoting the opening of wild card POS machines in three-star and above hotels, 3A and above tourist attractions and other places to optimize the payment service for overseas tourists.
In the next step, we will promote the establishment of hardware and software facilities for accepting mobile payment, bank cards, cash and other key cultural and tourist scenes such as scenic spots, tourist resorts, night cultural and tourist consumption gathering areas and tourist and leisure blocks, and upgrade the payment facilities for key cultural and tourist scenes such as tourist attractions, resorts and cultural venues. Guide and support Internet platform enterprises closely related to food, housing, transportation, travel, shopping and entertainment, and optimize the payment experience of inbound personnel purchasing cultural and tourism products and services online and offline.
Shi Zeyi, head of the International Exchange and Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, said that in terms of the convenience of ticket purchase in scenic spots, it will promote the reservation of artificial windows in scenic spots and provide offline ticket purchase services for tourists including the elderly and inbound tourists. At the same time, it will also simplify the online ticket booking procedure to provide a better experience for tourists.
Multi-sectoral collaboration to further promote payment facilitation
Payment service is the most basic financial service. On March 1st, the State Council Press Office held a routine briefing on the State Council policy, introducing the Opinions on Further Optimizing Payment Services and Improving Payment Convenience. At the briefing, the heads of several departments said that they would increase coordination among departments and optimize payment convenience, especially for the elderly and foreigners.
The People’s Bank of China indicated that it should pay close attention to key areas such as mobile payment, bank card acceptance, cash payment and bank branch service, so as to further improve the service level of payment suitable for aging.
Zhang Qingsong, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, said that he would focus on key convenience scenes such as public utilities payment, scenic spots, shopping malls and medical care, and keep traditional payment methods such as cash and bank cards. Continuously optimize mobile payment services. Ensure that the elderly can use and use it, and constantly bridge the digital divide.
It will also promote merchants in key business districts to open foreign card acceptance functions and add foreign currency exchange service points in key areas. The person in charge of the relevant departments of the National Development and Reform Commission said that it will continue to further promote the special rectification of refusing RMB cash.
Chen Hongwan, director of the Department of Finance, Finance and Credit Construction of the National Development and Reform Commission, introduced that unannounced visits and spot checks were continuously conducted on people’s livelihood-related scenes and foreign-related scenes, and the clues of rejection were verified. The behavior of refusing RMB cash with high public concern and wide influence was continuously punished and publicized, and the punishment information was included in the credit records of relevant subjects, giving full play to the warning role.
Ticket payment services and other links to improve travel convenience.
In view of the payment difficulties of foreigners and the elderly in transportation, the relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Transport said at the press conference that the convenience of transportation payment will be improved from ticket purchase, payment and service.
In terms of ticket purchasing channels, we will speed up the popularization of online ticket sales and promote the application of e-tickets, so as to facilitate domestic and foreign personnel to purchase tickets online with ID cards, passports, permanent residence cards for foreigners and other documents. Continue to retain the manual ticket window and manual ticket checking method to facilitate the elderly and foreigners to purchase tickets offline, and at the same time, improve the payment method.
Gao Bo, head of the Transportation Services Department of the Ministry of Transport, said that he actively promoted the major domestic car platform enterprises to expand payment channels, and some enterprises provided foreign friends with the service of "overseas mobile phone number registration+international credit card payment". Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and other cities support foreign friends to bind overseas bank cards through Alipay and China Unionpay Quick Pass, and use QR codes to scan codes to take urban public transport and rail transit.
It is also necessary to promote the aging transformation of transportation, improve the multilingual signs of transportation hubs, and conduct bilingual broadcasting and service guidance on qualified passenger routes and rail transit stations. We will continue to promote the telephone car rental service for taxis and the "one-click car rental" service for online car rental, and optimize the car rental process for foreigners.
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