Chapter 1. Two models: private platform vs. public rail.

Asia doesn’t have one payment model. It has two, and they are polar opposites. On one side is the private platform, where two Chinese super-apps have absorbed everyday payments. On the other is the public rail, where the Indian government built open, free infrastructure and lets banks and fintechs compete on top of it. The whole Asian payments landscape plays out in that tension.

Dimension	Platform model (China)	Public rail model (India)
Operator	Ant Group (Alipay), Tencent (WeChat Pay)	NPCI, a public/interbank entity
Type	Closed ecosystem, proprietary super-app	Open, interoperable infrastructure
Competition	De facto duopoly	Hundreds of apps on a single rail (UPI)
Cost to users	Free for users, funded by the ecosystem	Free for P2P and small merchants
Role of the state	After-the-fact regulator	Architect and owner of the rail
Risk	Concentration, dependence on two players	Economic sustainability of a free service

Two philosophies of payments in Asia

> 1B

Alipay users, the backbone of mobile payments in China

Ant Group, 2023–2024

≈18B

UPI transactions per month in India (mid-2025)

NPCI, 2025

~90 %+

of Chinese mobile payments captured by the Alipay + WeChat Pay duopoly

Market estimates, 2024

🔑

The question that shapes everything

Ownership of the rail is what separates the two models. In China, two private companies own it, and the state regulates, sometimes harshly, as when it halted Ant’s IPO in 2020. In India, the rail belongs to a public consortium, and value is created on top of it through competition. These two setups lead to two different forms of digital monetary sovereignty, and two lessons for the rest of the world.

🎯 Quick question

What distinguishes China’s mobile payment model from India’s?

Chapter 2. China: Alipay, WeChat Pay, and UnionPay.

In China, people don’t “pull out a card”; they scan a QR code. Payments have merged into two super-apps where users chat, order, invest, and pay without leaving the app. Alipay (Ant Group, part of the Alibaba group) and WeChat Pay (Tencent) have made the smartphone the universal wallet, pushing cash and even cards into the background.

> 1B

Alipay users (Ant Group), launched in 2004

Ant Group

1.3B+

monthly WeChat users, the base for WeChat Pay (Tencent)

Tencent, 2024

~CNY 7T

in cumulative e-CNY (digital yuan) transactions as of mid-2024, still marginal next to the super-apps

PBoC, 2024

The pillars of Chinese paymentsAlipayWeChat PayUNUnionPayALAlibabaTETencent

Component	Type	Role
Alipay / WeChat Pay	Private super-apps, QR wallets	Everyday retail payments, in stores and online
UnionPay	National card scheme (2002)	Cards: more than 9 billion issued, accepted in 180+ countries
e-CNY	The People’s Bank of China’s CBDC	Digital yuan in pilot; sovereignty and traceability; adoption still limited

The three building blocks of Chinese payments

ℹ️

UnionPay, the quiet giant

Long the domestic card monopoly, UnionPay has become the world’s largest card network by number of cards issued (more than 9 billion) and by transaction value. Accepted in more than 180 countries, it follows Chinese travelers everywhere, and its influence is often underestimated next to the high profile of the QR wallets.

⚠️

The downside of the duopoly

Concentration comes at a price: an entire country depends on two private companies, which raises competition and data concerns. The halt of Ant Group’s IPO in late 2020, followed by a regulatory crackdown, marked a limit: even a champion can be reined in once it becomes systemic.

🎯 Quick question

Which network is the world’s largest card scheme by number of cards issued?

Chapter 3. India: UPI, the public infrastructure that changed everything.

Launched in 2016 by NPCI, UPI (Unified Payments Interface) may be the most copied payment innovation of the decade. This instant account-to-account rail is open and free for users, so any app (PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm, and others) can connect to it. A simple identifier, the UPI address, takes the place of the IBAN and the card number.

≈18B

UPI transactions per month (mid-2025)

NPCI, 2025

~80 %

of retail digital payment volume in India goes through UPI

NPCI / RBI, 2024

750M+

RuPay cards issued, a domestic scheme backed by the India Stack

NPCI, 2024

A UPI address and a payment link (deep link)

UPI address (Virtual Payment Address): commerce@okhdfcbank

Payment link / QR intent:
upi://pay?pa=commerce@okhdfcbank&pn=Boutique%20Delhi&am=499.00&cu=INR&tn=Commande1042

pa = payee address (VPA)   pn = payee name
am = amount   cu = currency (INR)   tn = note

A UPI payment in a store

Customer

Scans the merchant’s QR code in a UPI app (PhonePe, Google Pay, etc.)

The app reads the UPI address and the amount

PSP app

Sends the request to NPCI’s UPI rail

UPI PIN authentication, no card data

NPCI (UPI rail)

Debits the customer’s bank account and credits the merchant’s in real time

Instant interbank, 24/7

Merchant

Gets instant confirmation

Free for small merchants, hence mass adoption

🔑

The India Stack: UPI doesn’t stand alone

UPI rests on a stack of public infrastructure: Aadhaar (universal biometric ID), UPI payments, DigiLocker (documents), and Account Aggregator (consent-based sharing of financial data). This stack, known as the India Stack, has brought hundreds of millions of Indians into the banking system and fueled UPI’s explosive growth. The rail is also expanding abroad, through a link with Singapore’s PayNow and early acceptance in the UAE, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, and even France.

🎯 Quick question

What defines India’s UPI?

Chapter 4. ASEAN: cross-border QR and Project Nexus.

Southeast Asia didn’t try to build one giant rail. It links its national rails together. Intraregional tourism and remittances pushed central banks to connect their instant payment systems, so travelers can pay across borders by scanning a local QR code with their usual app.

Apr. 2021

PayNow ↔ PromptPay

Singapore and Thailand link their real-time systems: the world’s first connection between two instant payment rails using mobile numbers.

Nov. 2022

Regional Payment Connectivity

Five ASEAN central banks (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand) sign an interconnection agreement; others join later.

2023-2024

QRIS cross-border QR

Indonesia links its QRIS to Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Tourists pay by scanning, with seamless currency conversion.

2024-2025

Project Nexus

Under the auspices of the BIS, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand set up a multilateral interconnection network; an operating entity (the NSO) is established in Singapore.

Approach	How it works	Example
Bilateral	Two countries link their rails directly, one link at a time	PayNow ↔ PromptPay (2021)
Multilateral	A common standard connects N countries at once, without multiplying links	Project Nexus (BIS)

Two approaches to interconnection

ℹ️

Project Nexus: the “SWIFT of real-time payments”?

Linking N instant payment systems pairwise requires N×(N-1)/2 bilateral connections, a number that quickly becomes unmanageable. Nexus, a blueprint from the BIS Innovation Hub, offers a standardized gateway: each country connects once to reach all the others. India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand are founding members, with the first connections expected around 2026–2027.

The lesson applies to the rest of the world. There’s no need to build a single global rail when interconnecting sovereign national rails through a common standard delivers instant cross-border payments while each country keeps control of its own system. It is a very different model from correspondent banking and international card schemes.

🎯 Quick question

What made the 2021 PayNow ↔ PromptPay connection a milestone?

Chapter 5. Japan, Korea, and Asia’s card schemes.

In Northeast Asia, two wealthy economies present opposite pictures. Japan, long attached to cash, is going digital at breakneck speed, while South Korea is one of the most card-heavy countries in the world. Three Asian card schemes (UnionPay, JCB, RuPay) aim to rival the Visa/Mastercard duopoly.

Criterion	Japan	South Korea
Dominant habit	Historically strong cash use, now shifting	Cards everywhere; card use among the highest in the world
Cashless share	≈40% (2024), public target raised	Among the highest in the world
Leading wallets	PayPay (QR, ~65M users)	Kakao Pay, Naver Pay, Toss, Samsung Pay
Transit / contactless	FeliCa IC cards: Suica, Pasmo	T-money, transit cards
Domestic scheme	JCB (founded 1961)	BC Card, Shinhan, local networks

Japan vs. South Korea: two payment cultures

🇨🇳

UnionPay

China’s national scheme (2002), the world’s largest card network by cards issued (9 billion+), accepted in 180+ countries. The spearhead of China’s drive to take its payments global.

🇯🇵

JCB

The only card scheme of Japanese origin (1961). More than 150 million cardholders, accepted in about 190 countries, with an especially dense network across Asia.

🇮🇳

RuPay

India’s domestic scheme, run by NPCI (2012). More than 750 million cards, boosted by financial inclusion and the credit card ↔ UPI link.

Northeast Asian schemes and wallets, and regional schemesUNUnionPayJCJCBRURuPayPAPayPayKAKakao PayNANaver Pay

≈ 40 %

cashless payment rate in Japan (2024), up sharply from about 20% in 2015

METI, 2024

~65M

PayPay users, Japan’s leading QR wallet

PayPay / LY Corp, 2024

1961

year JCB was founded, the only international card scheme of Japanese origin

JCB

🎯 Quick question

Which statement about Japan and South Korea is correct?

Chapter 6. Lessons from Asia for Europe.

Europe is seeking payment sovereignty in the face of Visa, Mastercard, and Big Tech wallets. Asia gives it a full-scale laboratory, showing what a public rail delivers (India), the risks of a private duopoly (China), and the power of sovereign interconnection (ASEAN).

🏛️

A public rail changes the scale

UPI proves that open infrastructure, free for users and run in the public interest, can displace cards and cash within a few years. It was one of the models studied for Brazil’s Pix, and it now informs the European debate on instant payments.

🔗

Interconnect, don’t unify

ASEAN connects sovereign national rails through a common standard (Nexus). The model is more realistic than a single global rail, and it can be applied directly to Europe and beyond.

⚠️

The duopoly comes at a cost

China shows the risks of depending on two private players: competition, data, and systemic power. Europe fears the same fate with US card schemes and Big Tech wallets.

📱

Mobile-first and QR

QR codes and instant account-to-account payments, with no plastic and no costly terminal, lower the barrier for small merchants. The effect shows up both in financial inclusion and in acceptance costs.

Asian building block	European equivalent or response	Status (2026)
UPI (public instant rail)	SEPA Instant Credit Transfer, mandated by the Instant Payments Regulation (IPR)	Becoming universal across the euro area
Super-app / unified wallet	Wero (EPI) and bank wallets	Wero rolling out, P2P first, then e-commerce
e-CNY (CBDC)	Digital euro (ECB)	Preparation phase, decision pending
Project Nexus (interconnection)	SEPA + instant interconnections	SEPA area already interconnected; cross-regional links under study

What Europe is building in response to Asia

🔑

Sovereignty: the real lesson

The common thread in Asia is not technological. It is political. Whoever controls the rail controls a nation’s payment data, pricing, and resilience. Europe has grasped this: it has mandated instant credit transfers, is backing Wero, and is studying a digital euro so that it does not depend solely on foreign schemes and wallets.

Free access and openness drive mass adoption: users pay nothing, and value is created on top of the rail.
The state can be the architect without being the sole operator: it sets the standard, and the private sector innovates on top (the UPI model).
Interconnecting sovereign systems is more sustainable than a single global rail (the Nexus model).
Payment sovereignty is a matter of public policy, not just a product. That is the shared lesson of China, India, and ASEAN.

🎯 Quick question

What is Asia’s main payments lesson for Europe?

Payments in Asia: super-apps, public rails, and cross-border QR. 6 chapters and a final quiz.

Chapter 1. Two models: private platform vs. public rail.