In April 2026, the “Measures for the Administration of Online Marketing of Financial Products” jointly issued by eight departments were officially implemented, which clearly stipulates that “non-bank payment institutions shall not include financial products such as loans and asset management products as payment tool options, nor shall they provide marketing services for the above products.”
This directly puts an end to the mainstream business model of “payment scenarios to attract traffic and financial services to realize” in the payment industry in the past ten years.
Broadcom Consulting analysts pointed out that the new regulations will force all payment institutions to truly return to the origins of payment services, and the core dimensions of competition will also undergo fundamental changes.
From the perspective of the payment institutions themselves, the focus of competition is the “efficiency revolution.”
For payment institutions, after bidding farewell to easy traffic monetization, the last word for survival and development has become to use technology to maximize payment efficiency.
This is no longer simply “faster”, but a restructuring of the payment process.
AI is making payments “disappear”.
The direction of competition has shifted from optimizing graphical interfaces to developing language interfaces, with the goal of achieving “intent as payment”.
The user says “Transfer 500 yuan to my family to buy medicine”, and the AI agent can automatically complete the entire process of verification, execution, and notification.
Offline, NFC “touch” payment similar to Alipay’s display at the Consumer Expo is also pursuing a touchless experience with second-level response.
Blockchain is reconstructing “trust”.
Its core value lies in providing certainty and low-cost trust for complex scenarios such as cross-border payments.
Traditional SWIFT cross-border payment takes 3-5 days, and the handling fee exceeds 4%. However, the blockchain-based solution can achieve payment in minutes, and the handling fee is reduced to less than 0.5%.
The licensed stablecoin launched by Hong Kong can even help small and medium-sized enterprises break away from the SWIFT system and achieve cross-border payments that arrive within 10 seconds and reduce costs by more than 90%.
Leading institutions have made heavy bets here.
Lianlian Digital will elevate “AI native” to the core of its strategy in 2025, with R&D investment reaching 361 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13%; WeChat, Alipay, and UnionPay have released their own AI payment skills or protocol frameworks to compete for the right to define the next generation payment ecosystem.
From the perspective of serving the real economy, the competition dimension is “scene depth”.
When payment returns to its origins, its value will be reflected in how it can more deeply integrate into and serve the real economy, especially in areas where financial coverage was insufficient in the past.
The competition here is about the ability to understand the pain points of the industry and the speed of implementation of customized solutions.
On the industrial side, the focus of competition is to resolve the “account period” problem.
For example, the “Trust Account” launched by the Yiliantong platform embeds supply chain bills into B2B transactions, providing online payment, automatic reconciliation and closed-loop financing management for small and medium-sized enterprises in Hebei cable and other industrial clusters, resolving the accounting period pain points that have long plagued the industry.
XTransfer, a cross-border payment institution, solves the problem of slow payment collection for textile foreign trade enterprises in Southeast Asia and provides local currency collection services, allowing Indonesian buyers to pay directly in Indonesian rupiah, and Chinese suppliers can receive the payment in RMB within a few minutes, increasing the capital turnover efficiency by more than 50%.
In the sinking market, the competition dimension is to build a “service network”.
Payment institutions need to extend service capillaries to counties and rural areas.
For example, in Guang’an, Sichuan, 862 “Yunongtong” service points have been established to assist farmers. In 2025, a total of 99,000 transactions were processed with an amount of 52.434 million yuan.
In Duchang, Jiangxi, the “bank-village direct connection” model has enabled 304 villages to make full online payments of collective funds. The total payment amount will reach 250 million yuan in 2024, improving the standardization and efficiency of rural finance.
For consumers and special groups, competition is reflected in “differentiation and inclusiveness.”
When basic payment functions converge, the competition turns to who can provide a more considerate and hassle-free experience.
This is not only a business strategy, but also an inevitable requirement to fulfill social responsibilities and reflect financial inclusion.
For ordinary users and merchants, differentiated services are the core competitiveness.
The “Doumen” intelligent orchestration center launched by Huifu World reduces corporate payment access costs by 80% through SaaS-based customized cashiers.
Saobei’s industry-financial integration system can automatically aggregate bills from more than 30 channels for chain brands, freeing the financial team from basic accounting and releasing over 60% efficiency.
For the elderly, it is crucial to retain the “slow option” and provide warm services.
The Yongzhou Branch of the Postal Savings Bank of China innovated and customized the “coin purse” to solve the pain point of difficulty in finding change for cash payments by the elderly, and has served more than 20,000 people in total.
In Yili Prefecture, the bank provides a “door-to-door express” service. In the first quarter of 2026, it has provided 331 door-to-door services for elderly people with limited mobility and 21 remote video assistance services.
All bank branches in Baoding City have completed aging-friendly renovations, and have provided door-to-door services to more than 8,900 people since 2025.
Integrated judgment: a deep value reconstruction, rather than a simple track switch.
The competitive shift among payment institutions is not a switch from one popular track to another, but a deep value reconstruction driven by regulation, technology empowerment, and demand.
From a comprehensive perspective, the future payment market will show a sharp differentiation pattern.
With their strong technical reserves and capital strength, leading institutions will focus on building an AI-native payment ecosystem and formulating industry standards, competing for the right to speak in the next ten years.
The survival space for a large number of small and medium-sized, vertical payment institutions lies in being deeply embedded in a specific industry or region and becoming an irreplaceable “payment + service” solution expert in this field, such as XTransfer, which focuses on cross-border trade, or the “Bank Village Direct Connection” service provider that is deeply involved in the supervision of rural collective funds.
Eventually, all competitors will realize that the essence of the payment business is to serve the real transaction process.
The core of competition will completely change from “who has the most traffic and who can lend money” to whose technology can make transactions safer and more convenient, whose services can make the real economy operate more efficiently, and whose experience can ensure that every user (including the elderly) is properly taken care of.
This race to return to our roots has just begun.
