Mobile payments are turning China cashless

World
Europe

By CGTN's He Weiwei

Life in China is becoming cashless as mobile payments have enjoyed growing popularity.

A survey on 6,595 people by Ipsos Research Company found that 40 percent of people would take less than 100 yuan (14.8 US dollars) with them while going out. The survey also showed that over 70 percent of people said they can live "one week" with such a small amount of cash.

China is growing rapidly in third party mobile payment transactions. /CGTN Photo

China's third party mobile payment transactions stood at 12.2 trillion yuan (1.81 trillion US dollars) in 2015 and jumped to 58.8 trillion yuan (8.7 trillion US dollars) in 2016, and is estimated to reach 98.7 trillion yuan (14.7 trillion US dollars) in 2017, according to iResearch Consulting Group.

The 2017 Smart Life Index Report assessed mobile payment development in 324 cities across China, and scored them in terms of mobile payment activity, WeChat Pay usage in business and public services provided on WeChat. Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou are the top three cities on the list, that means these cities are relatively "smarter" and have easier access to mobile payment system.

WeChat Pay is one of the most popular means of mobile payment in China. /CGTN Photo

The report was jointly released by China's Internet tech-giant Tencent, Chongyang Institute for Financial studies of Renmin University of China, and Ipsos research company.

According to Tencent, its average daily number of mobile payments exceeded 600 million transactions by the end of 2016, meaning nearly one of every two people in China would use mobile payment once a day.

The craze is not just in China. Other 19 countries and regions have opened access to WeChat Pay, including Japan and the US.