The central bank holds a meeting to promote the optimization of payment services and takes multiple measures to address the blockages in payment services.

On February 29th, the People's Bank of China held a meeting to promote the optimization of payment services, emphasizing the need to focus on the payment inconvenience issues faced by the elderly and foreign nationals in China. The meeting called for increased coordination, necessary resource allocation, and multiple measures to address payment service bottlenecks, promoting the parallel development and complementarity of mobile payments, bank cards, cash, and other payment methods. It required relevant units to focus on key cities and places, stimulate the initiative and creativity of commercial banks, non-bank payment institutions, clearing institutions, foreign exchange institutions, and other payment service providers, and focus on key tasks such as bank card acceptance, foreign currency exchange, cash payments, mobile payments, and promotional activities, in order to achieve significant results in the short term. The full text is as follows: The People's Bank of China held a meeting to promote the optimization of payment services In order to further implement the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, the People's Bank of China held a meeting on February 29, 2024, to promote the optimization of payment services. Pan Gongsheng, Secretary of the Party Committee and Governor of the People's Bank of China, attended the meeting and delivered a speech. Zhang Qingsong, Deputy Governor of the People's Bank of China, and Xu Zhibin, Deputy Director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, attended the meeting. The meeting emphasized that the Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the convenience of payments. On February 23rd, the executive meeting of the State Council reviewed and approved the "Opinions on Further Optimizing Payment Services and Enhancing Payment Convenience," emphasizing the need to focus on the payment inconvenience issues faced by the elderly and foreign nationals in China, strengthen coordination, increase necessary resource allocation, take multiple measures to address payment service bottlenecks, and promote the parallel development and complementarity of mobile payments, bank cards, and cash. The meeting pointed out that optimizing payment services is an important manifestation of implementing the political and people-oriented nature of financial work and is also an intrinsic requirement for further optimizing the business environment and serving high-level opening up to the outside world. The People's Bank of China will work together with relevant parties, adhere to goal-oriented and problem-oriented approaches, address the payment habits of different groups, coordinate efforts to fill gaps and weaknesses, continuously deepen the construction of payment service scenarios, constantly enhance the inclusiveness of payment services, focus on improving a multi-level and diversified payment service system, to provide elderly people, foreign nationals in China, and other groups with higher quality, efficient, and convenient payment services, better serving society and promoting high-level opening up. The meeting required all relevant units to earnestly implement the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, actively take responsibilit... (the rest of the text is cut off)