Third party mobile payment thrives in China

The total trading volume of the third party payment business rose 43.2 percent year on year to 17.9 trillion yuan (2.9 trillion U.S. dollars) in China last year, the China Securities Journal reported Monday. The country's third party mobile payment market also grew as transactions exceeded 1.2 billion yuan, up 707 percent year on year, according to a report by the Institute of Finance and Banking under Chinese Academy and Social Sciences. The People' s Bank of China (PBoC) suspended code-based payments and virtual credit cards on March 14, and set a limit on the size of third party payments, bringing discontent to some financial quarters, according to the Journal. Fan Shuangwen, deputy director of payments and settlements at PBoC said the limit guaranteed security rather than restricting consumption. Limits maintained transparency in the process and prevented money laundering, Fan added. Guo Tianyong of Central University of Finance and Economics, questioned the need for a limit if the third party payment guaranteed compensation against capital lost. Yang Tao of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, suggested risk measurement as a focus for future work. "Third-party systems can only be evaluated through risk measurement, rather than qualitative analysis based on subjective perception," Yang said. The risk measurement identifies the type and source of risks, analyzes and copes with those risks, and promises public disclosure, Yang added.