China's mobile payment posts robust growth in 2017

A passenger uses mobile payment on a bus in Qingdao, Shandong province, July 2, 2017.[Photo/VCG]   

BEIJING - China's mobile payment posted robust growth last year and is gradually replacing generally PC-based online payment, a report showed Thursday.

Domestic commercial banks handled over 37.5 billion mobile payment transactions last year, up 46.06 percent year on year, according to the report from the Payment & Clearing Association of China.

Non-banking payment institutions handled over 239 billion mobile payment transactions, surging more than 146 percent year on year.

Online payment services showed lackluster performance last year. Transactions of online payment services for commercial banks only grew 5.2 percent year on year. Non-banking payment institutions saw online payment transactions fall by over 27 percent.

The popularity of payment via scanning products or merchant barcodes with mobile phones has helped promote mobile payments.