MOBILE payment penetration continues to rise in China as more consumers have acclimated to the popular technology, the latest survey from China UnionPay showed.

In 2020, 98 percent of the 65,000 surveyed listed mobile payments as their most commonly used channel, up 5 percentage points from the previous year, according to the report jointly released by China UnionPay and 17 commercial banks and payment institutions.

The share of QR code payment users reached 85 percent, an increase of 6 percentage points from the previous year, the report showed.

Affected by the pandemic, more offline payment scenarios have been migrating online. The survey report showed that 30 percent of respondents often use livestream shopping.

Meanwhile, small physical stores, such as vendors and fruit stores, have increased their online and offline payment integration, winning them customers during the pandemic.

The survey report also showed insufficient self-protection in payment security, with “all payment passwords being the same” and “payment while connected to public Wifi” as the two most prominent risks.

China had 854 million online payment users as of December last year, accounting for 86.4 percent of its total Internet users, according to a report on the country’s Internet development released by the China Internet Network Information Center yesterday.

That marked an increase of over 86 million online payment users since March 2020, according to the report.  (Xinhua)