China to open up payment industry

BEIJING - China will open up its payment industry in a balanced and orderly way, Fan Yifei, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), said at a forum Thursday.

The country would give overseas-funded financial institutions "pre-establishment national treatment," which means giving equal treatment to overseas and domestic companies even before they make investments, coupled with the negative list approach, according to Fan.

"The government will significantly ease market access and push forward opening in the e-payment sector," Fan said at the Sixth China Payment and Clearing Forum.

Front-end trading and settlement will be opened up first.

Being an important part of the financial service, all payment businesses from public, private and foreign-funded institutions should ask for permission and be subject to supervision in the country.

The central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan called for more reform and opening up of the country's financial sector earlier this month.

Zhou also said in June that opening up helped to build a strong and competitive financial sector, and that protectionist behavior limiting the participation of foreign players would lead to laziness and weakness, causing poor competitiveness and hurting the industry's development.