China’s central bank plans to require some of the country’s payment platforms to transfer customers’ funds to a central custody account, with 26 payment institutions picked for a trial run, according to state media. 

The People’s Bank of China intends to target some payment institutions for a trial run of new, more stringent requirements that would force them to transfer all customer funds to a centralised deposit account, the state-owned newspaper Securities Times reported, citing unnamed industry sources.

The ramifications of such a system could be significant for the payment platforms industry, which has become a vital part of China’s consumer economy over the last decade. The two payment platforms run by Alibaba and Tencent make up 90 per cent of the country’s  $16tn annual mobile payments market.