(ECNS) – Credit card payments made via traditional point-of-sale (POS) terminals are increasingly being replaced by mobile payment solutions such as Alipay and WeChat Pay in China, the Beijing Morning Post reported on Tuesday.
In the first quarter of 2016, the number of transactions facilitated by POS credit card payments was only 10 per person, less than one third of that made via online payments, the paper said, citing data from online finance platform Wacai.com.
Wacai.com attributes the change to the large number of credit card users who have shifted much of their shopping activities online.
However, although mobile payment services like Alipay and WeChat Pay are taking on an increasing share of the market, banks still account for the majority of the payments.
In the fourth quarter of last year, non-bank services processed online payments for 25.9 billion transactions, up 101.47 percent from the same period in 2014, with their total value hitting 16.51 trillion yuan ($2.55 trillion), up 102.83 percent year-on-year, data from China's central bank showed.
In the same quarter, payment for 5.63 billion transactions was made via mobile solutions, up 244.74 percent from the same period in 2014, worth a total 23.46 trillion yuan, up 208.28 percent year-on-year, according to the central bank.
Wacai.com also found that individuals born post-90s were more willing to make payments through online means, although they registered much lower per capita online credit card spending compared to the post-70s and post-80s in the first quarter of this year.
