The future of mobile payment in China

The latest payment report released by PBOC shows that in 2014Q1, electronic payments kept a steady growth with the most eye-catching performance being from mobile payments.

The figure below illustrates that the gross amount of electronic payments reached RMB 292.89 Trillion in Q1 2014, up 34.6%. Although online payment still dominates the industry, the performance of mobile payment seems to be more outstanding. Data shows that the growth rate of gross amount by mobile payment hits to 255.37%, though admittedly the value in the last year was miniscule compared to the total payment value.

In recent years, BAT(Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) and banks have made tremendous efforts to develop mobile payments, thus the significant growth in 2014Q1 is within our forecast. With users getting used to mobile payment, we estimate it will keep its dramatic growth and will surge in the coming future. The future of mobile payments in China look rosy.