China's leading fintech firms revolutionize digital payment systems

Chinese financial technology (fintech) companies are revolutionizing the financial industry with groundbreaking payment innovations, transforming the way people do business.

For decades, China's finance sector was controlled by state-owned giants, but the rise of fintech has disrupted this dominance, paving the way for a new era of innovation and competition. This rapid adoption of fintech is driving a shift towards a cashless economy and transforming daily life.

In an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN), Zhou Ye, founder and CEO of Huifu Payment, said that capturing just one percent of the payment market is a benchmark of success, and his company has already achieved impressive scale, processing over 410 billion U.S. dollars in transactions annually.

The country's non-bank financial institutions handled more than 1.3 trillion digital payment transactions in 2024, worth an excess of 331 trillion yuan (about 45.4 trillion U.S. dollars), according to the People's Bank of China.

Huifu was among the first batch of fin-tech firms to join the revolution in China's payment industry. It was the first third-party payment company being approved to conduct fund sales online in China.

"After the emergence of new technologies, the market needs imagination, customized design and faster speed. Private companies are filling this gap. I think, 80 percent of the transaction volume come from state-owned companies, but 80 percent of the transaction numbers would come from private companies," he said.

Zhou founded Huifu in 2006. Before that, he had nearly 10 years of working experience in IT in foreign-invested firms, and another six years in a state-owned financial institution. Additionally, Zhou was involved in founding UnionPay's online payment platform, ChinaPay.

The company started doing cross-border business in 2016, and went through a very tough period to figure out the right model. Now, this company has been collaborating with many prominent foreign companies due to the increasing number of foreign retail firms undertaking digital transformation.

So far, it has grown from a team of 30 to a company with more than 1,000 employees.

His goals are evidently evolving in response to the new demands arising from the development of various industries and companies in China.

"Every time when I want to take a pause, there's a huge wave coming. So for us, we want to try them all. Our next goal is that we want to be able to receive payment across the world. This means, we have to connect with all banking systems and wallet managers around the world," he said.

In January this year, Huifu expanded its business to Australia, opening a subsidiary with a team of six.

"It was in March 2020, that I realized this could be a huge market. I was at home, monitoring every day's transaction volume. All of a sudden, I found that the cross-border business was growing by several times. And it's still growing by more than 30 percent every year," he said.

So far, the company can fulfill payment in more than 150 countries and regions with more than 25 currencies.

China's payment companies are taking the lead in the world, and Chinese firms are able to compete with foreign counterparts with their volume, according to Zhou.

China's leading fintech firms revolutionize digital payment systems

South China's Hainan Free Trade Port (FTP), the world's largest FTP by area, is in smooth and orderly operations one month into the launch of its special customs operations.

The island has seen an increase in both the value of imports of zero-tariff goods and the number of foreign trade entities since Dec 18.

According to the Haikou Customs, from Dec. 18, 2025 to Jan. 17, 2026, the value of "first line" imported zero-tariff goods was 750 million yuan (about 107 million U.S. dollars); the value of processed and value-added goods sold domestically through the "second line" was about 85.9 million yuan.

Meanwhile, a total of 5,132 new foreign trade entities were registered in this period.

In addition, the duty-free sales supervised by customs reached 4.86 billion yuan, up 46.8 percent year on year, and the number of shoppers rose 30.2 percent year on year to 745,000, showing sustained strong consumption vitality.

To better meet the diverse needs of tourists, Hainan's duty-free policy ushered in a new round of adjustments on Nov. 1, 2025. The categories of duty-free goods increased from 45 to 47, and the beneficiary range was expanded to include outbound travelers, attracting more international tourists to duty-free shopping.

On Dec. 18 last year, China launched island-wide special customs operations in the Hainan FTP, allowing freer entry of overseas goods, expanding zero-tariff coverage, and introducing more business-friendly measures.

One notable special customs policy is offering "freer access at the first line," referring to freer trade between Hainan and areas outside China's customs borders, and "regulated access at the second line," which involves applying standard customs controls for goods moving from Hainan to the mainland.

China's Hainan FTP sees early gains from island-wide special customs operations