The payment systems have a dark side, though, facilitating money laundering and allowing shady online retailers to cook the books by sending themselves money. These new regulations could stymie those nefarious deeds.

Starting in April, static QR transactions will have a hard limit of Rmb500 ($76.52) per person, per day. "Additional daily limits of Rmb1,000 ($153.03) or Rmb5,000 ($765.15) apply to barcode payers who have not completed certain authentication procedures," Financial Times writes.

The People's Bank of China also believes this move will help settle security issues and foster fair competition between Alibaba and Tencent's WeChat platforms according to state-sponsored news outlet Xinhuanet. Unlike NFC payments in the west, this proves that QR code payments in the region have become so common that the government can't afford to ignore them anymore.