Buy first and pay later, and cryptocurrency wallet payments are developing rapidly, and global payments show four major trends

# Global Payment Industry Shows New Development Features

Source: Beijing Business Daily  

On September 14, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily noticed that the report *"High-Quality Development of Card Organizations Drives the Payment Industry to Serve the Real Economy"*, led by the FinTech 50 Forum, was officially released recently. The report systematically sorts out the development trends of the global and Chinese payment industries, and puts forward a series of future-oriented development paths and policy recommendations.  

Overall, as the global payment format accelerates innovation, the technology-driven payment industry shows a trend of vigorous development of new formats. Relying on its leading mobile payment ecosystem, China’s payment industry continues to enhance payment convenience in terms of technological innovation, multi-subject collaboration, and regulatory compliance, while also imposing new requirements on industry institutions.  

## Global Payments Show Four Major Trends  

First, the report analyzes the development trends of the global payment industry. It points out that as the global economic and trade pattern enters a new evolution stage, the global payment industry is in a period of profound transformation. The payment system presents a parallel trend of "regionalization" and "infrastructureization", with real-time payment systems and regional interconnection advancing at an accelerated pace. At the same time, the accelerated application of technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, blockchain, and biometrics is profoundly reshaping payment processes and user experiences.  

The other two trends are reflected in supervision and new payment formats. At the supervision level, the global community focuses on "regulatory consistency" and "penetrating supervision", and is committed to seeking a dynamic balance between fair competition, risk prevention and control, and innovation incentives. Meanwhile, new formats such as Account-to-Account (A2A) payment, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), and cryptocurrency wallet payment are developing rapidly, reflecting the market’s continuous pursuit of efficient and diversified payment tools.  

From a simple "transaction processing tool" to a more intelligent and convenient financial infrastructure, the status of payment in the financial system is becoming increasingly prominent. Among the four major trends presented in the report, the emergence of new payment formats has attracted more attention and discussion. The industry generally believes that against the background of the accelerated transformation of the global payment industry, the emergence of new payment formats not only reflects the innovative vitality driven by technology, but also demonstrates the market’s urgent demand for efficient and diversified payment solutions.  

As the name suggests, Account-to-Account payment refers to the direct transfer of funds from the payer’s bank or e-wallet account to the payee’s relevant account. This type of payment method does not rely on traditional payment tools such as credit cards, and its core feature is "end-to-end". Currently, the sending and receiving of WeChat red envelopes and Alipay transfers in our daily lives are typical examples.  

In terms of "Buy Now Pay Later", based on the actual usage experience of Beijing Business Daily reporters, this payment method is currently widely used on domestic e-commerce platforms. Through this method, users can postpone the payment node until after receiving the goods, and can also split large-value consumption into interest-free or low-interest installments within a specified period, thereby enhancing consumers’ willingness to purchase. For platforms, it can also realize the ecological closed loop of "payment - credit granting - consumption".  

In addition, cryptocurrency payment is still in the exploration stage worldwide. Due to price volatility, mainstream cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are difficult to become daily payment tools. More regions and institutions are trying to break down the barriers between cryptocurrencies and traditional consumption fields through stablecoins to reduce payment costs and shorten settlement cycles. Based on the regulatory requirements in Chinese mainland, this payment method cannot be used in Chinese mainland.  

"Overall, the current global payment industry has an obvious phenomenon of business homogeneity. After more than a decade of development, the industry has long been stable, and the products and services provided by different payment service providers are very similar. The profit space of traditional payment business continues to shrink under policy supervision and market competition. Institutions in the payment field have begun to compete to find new business growth points. Combined with the development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, new payment formats have emerged." Wang Pengbo, chief analyst of Botong Consulting, pointed out.  

## China Leads the World in Scale  

Looking at the development of China’s payment industry, in fact, these global trends have also been echoed and innovatively practiced in China’s payment industry. After experiencing the explosive growth of mobile payment, China’s payment industry is entering a new stage characterized by ecology, openness, and compliance.  

Earlier, Pan Gongsheng, Governor of the People’s Bank of China, stated that emerging technologies such as blockchain and distributed ledgers have promoted the vigorous development of central bank digital currencies and stablecoins, realizing "payment as settlement", reshaping the traditional payment system from the bottom, significantly shortening the cross-border payment chain, and at the same time posing huge challenges to financial supervision.  

The report believes that China’s payment industry has gradually formed an ecological system with "global leading scale, in-depth technology penetration, and diversified symbiosis", which is mainly reflected in the following aspects: The parallel mode of physical card and digital card issuance has become the mainstream, and digital wallets have become the core payment tool for card binding due to their convenience; Diversified payment methods such as card swiping, QR codes, contactless payment (NFC, HCE), palm swiping, or face swiping cover multiple scenarios and are very popular in high-frequency small-sum transaction scenarios such as supermarkets and transportation; Diversified market entities such as commercial banks, card organizations, non-bank payment institutions, and service providers develop in coordination; The payment and settlement market further deepens opening-up and cooperation.  

In the past few years, as the country with the highest mobile payment penetration rate in the world, mobile payment has completely reshaped the payment habits of Chinese consumers, and can be seen in various high-frequency payment scenarios on streets and lanes. According to the overall operation of the payment system in the second quarter of 2025 released by the People’s Bank of China, during the reporting period, non-bank payment institutions in China processed 333.845 billion online payment transactions, with an amount of 82.11 trillion yuan.  

Diversified payment methods meet the needs of different types of consumer entities. In order to make payments more convenient, under the guidance of regulatory policies, industry institutions have introduced new innovations. The interconnection between payment institutions has accelerated, and the scope has been expanded to overseas. From "face-swiping payment" to "palm-swiping payment" and then to "tap-to-pay", more cutting-edge payment methods have been quickly implemented in specific scenarios. In terms of improving the foreign-related payment environment, according to recent news from the National Development and Reform Commission, Beijing’s optimized payment services were selected as one of the top ten innovative practice cases for optimizing the business environment in China. This includes the service of "tapping a foreign card to pass through turnstiles" launched by China UnionPay and foreign card organizations such as Visa to support subways in cities like Beijing.  

Wang Pengbo said that from a global perspective, China’s mobile payment (China Mobile: 107.330, -0.42, -0.39%) has the most comprehensive development, which is reflected not only in the improvement of the payment system, but also in the close cooperation between various participating entities. Currently, under the normalized and strict supervision, China’s payment industry maintains stable overall development, and the probability of systemic risks is low. Therefore, security is not the primary challenge for industry institutions.  

Wang Pengbo believes that more challenges come from the competition in payment business. The profit space of traditional payment business continues to shrink under policy supervision and market competition. FinTech and value-added services have long become another focus of competition among payment institutions. More industry institutions are competing in "digitalization", "interest rates", and "going global". Payment institutions have gradually begun to combine their own advantages and the differentiated needs of customers in different industries, select specific industries to deepen solutions, and further enhance their business competitiveness.  

By Liao Meng, Beijing Business Daily Reporter  

## Disclaimer  

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute investment advice for this platform. This platform makes no guarantee regarding the accuracy, completeness, originality, or timeliness of the information in the article, nor does it assume any liability for any losses arising from the use of or reliance on the information in the article.