On February 12, China Daily reported that the first mobile non-contact payment system (NFC) has been undergoing trials. If successful, the novelty has the potential to replace cash and bank cards.
The edition cited People’s Bank of China Deputy Governor Li Dongrong as saying that the trial operations began at the end of 2013. The new payment facilities are tailored to unify various electronic payment systems, including those ones that belong to banks, and mobile operators. China’s leading financial organizations, in particular China Construction Bank Corp, China CITIC Bank Corp, China Everbright Bank, China UnionPay, and mobile operator China Mobile, are involved into the experiment.
The major obstacle, according to Li Dongrong, is narrow acceptance of payments and the necessity to integrate mobile payment providers into a single system.
The essence of the Near Field Communication technology (NFC) is that one has to tap a mobile device on any NFC-enabled terminal at checkout to pay for the purchases. Meanwhile, the share of the NFС payments equals only 0.8% of the total volume of third-party mobile payment transactions made in China. Last year the Chinese mobile payment market was estimated at 197 billion dollars. Now NFC-based payments are most popular in Sweden.
