The headquarters of Alipay's mobile payment service at e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. The country's mobile payments soared to 9.64 trillion yuan ($1.59 trillion) last year. Han Chuanhao / Xinhua

Non-cash modes of payment are showing strong growth potential, report shows

Mobile payments accounted for about 3 percent of the total non-cash transactions in China in 2013. It may not seem like much, but paying through mobile devices is showing strong growth momentum with transactions rising more than 200 percent year-on-year, a central bank report said on Monday.

According to the 2013 payment system review released by the People's Bank of China, mobile payments experienced rapidly growing popularity in the country with the number of transactions up 212.86 percent to 1.67 billion. Volume soared 317.56 percent year-on-year to a total of 9.64 trillion yuan ($1.59 trillion).

Mobile payment was the only non-cash payment instrument that underwent triple-digit growth in China's banking system in 2013. China's non-cash payments, including debit and credit card payments, posted a growth of 21.92 percent year-on-year with transactions hitting 50.16 billion in 2013 and volume reaching 607.56 trillion yuan - an increase of 24.97 percent year-on-year.

Most of the non-cash payment methods, such as debit card payment and online banking, which offers personal computer-based banking services, showed double-digit growth in their transactions in 2013. Meanwhile, few of the non-cash payment methods, such as telephone banking, which offers banking services though call centers, showed decreases in their transactions last year.

Statistics from the central bank are based on records within the banking systems. They don't include the substantial progress made in the third-party mobile payment market.

According to consultancy iResearch Group, transactions in China using third-party mobile payments, such as Alipay, the e-payment arm of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, surged 707 percent year-on-year to 1.2 trillion yuan in 2013.

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