From a national level, the core of policy advancement is to build “main roads.”
The People’s Bank of China made it clear in January 2026 that accelerating the construction of the RMB cross-border payment system will be its annual focus.
The most intuitive effect is reflected in the transaction data of the RMB Cross-border Payment System (CIPS): in March 2026, its average daily transaction size was approximately 920.5 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 48% from February; on April 2, the single-day transaction volume set a new record, reaching 1.22 trillion yuan.
Behind this is rule optimization and network expansion – the revised business rules were implemented in February, which lowered the access threshold for overseas institutions. Currently, CIPS business covers 190 countries and regions around the world, with nearly 1,800 domestic and foreign participants.
At the same time, the cross-border QR code unified gateway is also being rapidly laid out as a “capillary”, with the goal of achieving interoperability with more than 40 overseas wallet institutions around the world.
From the perspective of payment institutions, under the guidance of policies, the internationalization strategies of giants have undergone significant differentiation.
WeChat Pay chose the “lightly compatible” strategy of borrowing ships to go overseas.
In April 2026, it announced direct access to the national payment QR code systems of five countries including South Korea and Thailand (such as ZeroPay in South Korea and PromptPay in Thailand).
This means that Chinese tourists do not need to download local APPs and can use WeChat to scan QR codes like locals. The core of the strategy is low cost, wide coverage, and quick access to millions of local merchants in the five countries.
Currently, WeChat cross-border payment covers 78 countries and regions.
Alipay is committed to becoming a “connector” to the global payment network through the “Alipay+” ecological network model.
It has connected more than 40 electronic wallets around the world, covering more than 150 million merchants, and built a cross-border payment ecosystem with itself as the gateway.
The two strategies run in parallel, reflecting the different implementation paths that market institutions explore based on their own advantages under a unified policy framework.
For domestic and foreign users, the direct impact of the policy is the transformation of the payment experience from “barrier” to “seamless”.
For Chinese users traveling abroad, the greatest convenience is “one code that connects the world”.
In the past, you needed to exchange currency, make change, or download multiple apps. Now in countries where you have access, you can use WeChat or Alipay to scan the QR code of the local merchant to pay directly, and the system will automatically convert based on the real-time exchange rate.
During the Spring Festival in 2026, the spending amount of Chinese tourists in South Korea increased by more than 160% year-on-year.
For foreign users entering China, the policy focuses on solving their payment problems in China.
Mainly through two modes: “external card binding” (binding international bank cards to domestic wallets) and “outsourcing internal use” (direct use of overseas e-wallets).
The effect was immediate: During the 2026 May Day holiday, the number of transactions by foreigners using WeChat’s “external card binding” increased by 58% year-on-year; the amount of consumption using Alipay-related services increased by nearly 70% year-on-year.
In Shanghai, in the first quarter of 2026, the year-on-year increase in the number and value of transactions for these two types of businesses was close to or exceeding 100%.
The evaluations of industry experts and international institutions provide a more macro and calm perspective.
Supporters believe the results are significant.
Wang Pengbo, chief analyst at Broadcom Consulting, pointed out that the increase in May Day data is the result of the relaxation of entry and exit policies, the enrichment of cultural and tourism scenes and the optimization of payment products.
Su Xizhiyan Su Xiaorui believes that diversified methods such as “wild card bundling” have broken down cross-border consumption barriers.
Practical cases also provide evidence. For example, the governor of Indonesia’s central bank said that China-Indonesia QR code interconnection has improved payment facilitation and local currency settlement has reduced costs.
But challengers point to deeper obstacles.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) bluntly stated in the report that the pain points of cross-border payments are essentially market failures and institutional differences. Relying solely on technological innovations in the private sector (such as blockchain and digital currencies) will have limited effects because of fundamental challenges such as regulatory compliance and inconsistent technical standards.
This implies that when China’s successful retail payment experience is replicated in the cross-border field, it will encounter the “wall of rules” of the global complex regulatory network.
Taken together, China’s path to promoting cross-border payment interconnection is a clear, systematic, multi-level, and differentiated advancement.
Systematization is reflected in the simultaneous upgrade of the infrastructure of “main roads” (CIPS) and “capillaries” (QR code network).
The multi-level performance is the two-wheel drive of “policy guidance + market drive”, as well as comprehensive coverage of service objects for institutions (large-amount trade settlement) and individuals (small-amount retail payments).
The most significant feature is differentiation: in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the goal is comprehensive integration, and the cross-border application of digital renminbi has been implemented on a large scale; in Southeast Asia, bilateral cooperation is the main focus, focusing on promoting QR code interconnection and local currency settlement, and directly serving tourism and trade; in Europe, CIPS is mainly used to connect with local financial infrastructure, focusing on serving bulk trade settlement, and the retail end has made relatively slow progress.
So, how does policy advance?
The answer is a combination: use top-level design to anchor the direction, build a solid foundation with infrastructure upgrades, use market institutions as a pioneer to expand the ecosystem, and adopt flexible and pragmatic cooperation strategies based on the actual conditions of different regions.
The current results are mainly reflected in the rapid growth of transaction data and the significant improvement in user convenience.
However, the real test of the future is whether China’s technical standards can be deeply connected with the global complex regulatory network, which requires a higher level of international public sector cooperation to break the situation.
