Abstract

China Payment and Settlement System Development Report（2019），as the 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 five issues of the annual report have attracted general and intense attention of academics，market professionals，and policy makers.

The key issue in the development of payment market is the balance between efficiency and security. On the one hand，against the background of strengthening financial supervision and preventing systemic risk，the regulation of payment market will be a basic and long-term task. On the other hand，with the rapid development of technology，our payment and settlement systems are evolving at a breathless pace. Especially in the area of retail payment，all kind of innovations are changing people’s routine life. The financial innovations in China，especially those in mobile payments，have attracted the world’s attention. However，the progress of payment theories is seriously lagging behind the development of industry and market，which contributes to the controversies in policy and practice.

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.