Abstract

China Payment and Settlement System Development Report（2020），as the eighth annual report of Research Center of Payment & Settlement，aims to summarize and reflect the various aspects of China’s payment and settlement system and their implication for real economy. It tries to cover the reform and evolution of institutions，rules，and policies on payment and settlement system over the world and track the theoretical frontiers in this area. With ample data and detailed analysis，the report tries to provide reliable and useful references for financial institutes，academic researchers，and regulatory authority. Since its first publication in 2013，the seven issues of the annual report have attracted general and intense attention of academics，market professionals，and policy makers.

The building of financial market infrastructure with payment system playing a key role is the precondition of financial reform. As economic growth is impossible without infrastructure such as roads，airports，and ports，a healthy financial system needs the support of complete financial market infrastructure. At present，China’s payment industry is facing unpreceded opportunities and challenges. The coronavirus pandemic is bringing a fundamental impact on payment systems while encouraging the exploration in “contactless financial services”. Against this background，we need to rethink and reframe the status quo and future of payment industry.

The report consists of two parts：general reports and special topics. The general report presents a panorama of China’s payment and settlement system，including its evolution path，current status，existed problems，and future trends and explores the relationship between payment system indexes with macroeconomic variables，regional development，financial risk，and monetary policy with quantitative methods. Special topics keep a track of the development in domestic and foreign payment and settlement systems as well as the hot issues in this area and provide a selective survey of the literature in FinTech and payment innovation. We expect this report to become a platform for the communication between Research Center of Payment & Settlement and all the peoples and institutes interested in this significant area to contribute to the development of China’s payment and settlement system.