Cross-border renminbi payments surpassed 4 trillion yuan ($556 billion) last year for the first time in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, setting a record.

The RMB, also known as the yuan, has also become the largest cross-border settlement currency between Shenzhen and Hong Kong for four consecutive years.

The cross-border renminbi payment of 4.2 trillion yuan recorded in 2023 is an increase of 28.3 percent year-on-year, ranking third nationwide.

Renminbi transactions between Shenzhen and Hong Kong surged more than one-third on a yearly basis to 3.5 trillion yuan, accounting for about 58.3 percent of the total cross-border currency transactions between the two cities.

Since the full resumption of normal cross-border transportation between the two cities, Hong Kong residents have flocked to Shenzhen to dine and shop for cost-effective products.

In light of different payment habits, the Chinese central bank's Shenzhen branch has established a comprehensive range of cross-border payment methods.

These include digital RMB, mobile payments, card payments, and cash, in order to provide convenience for Hong Kong residents for making payments in Shenzhen, said Sun Chunguang, director of payment and settlement at the Shenzhen branch of the People's Bank of China.

In cooperation with Octopus Cards Ltd — Hong Kong's major means of transport payment — Shenzhen banks have begun to issue e-CNY wallet cards around checkpoints for Hong Kong visitors, enabling those without mainland bank cards or mobile payment accounts to enjoy digital pay across the border.

So far, Hong Kong residents have accumulated nearly 25,000 e-CNY wallet cards.

Moreover, the number of transactions through WeChat Pay HK, the Hong Kong version of the omnipotent WeChat Pay on the mainland, spiked by 14 times in December compared to the first month after the border fully resumed.

In 2023, noncash payment transactions made by Hong Kong residents in Shenzhen notched up to over 35 million, with a total amount of 8.58 billion yuan, representing year-on-year increases of 222.45 percent and 70.5 percent, respectively.

Sun said local banks have also ramped up efforts to open mainland bank accounts for Hong Kong visitors.

In total, Hong Kong residents opened about 3 million bank accounts in Shenzhen by the end of last year, with 400,000 of these opened in 2023 alone.

Among them, 140,000 new bank accounts opened in 2023 were through the witness account opening system, accumulating to more than 330,000 such accounts in total.

Transactions through these new accounts hit 18.4 billion yuan and comprised of approximately 90 percent of the total volume in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

grace@chinadailyhk.com