Mobile payments beat online payments in terms of total transaction volume for the first time ever in 2016.
At the launch of the latest “China Payments and Settlement Development Report (2017)” on 18 May by the National Institution for Finance and Development, vice-central bank governor Fan Yifei revealed that China’s payment sector processed a total of 122.86 billion mobile payment transactions in 2016, well ahead of the total number of online payment transactions which were 112.88 billion in total.
This marks the first time in China’s history that mobile payments have trumped online payments in terms of transaction numbers.
Online payments nonetheless came out on top in terms of total transaction value, with a figure of 2,133.4 trillion yuan as compared to 277.1 trillion yuan for mobile payments.
