This Day, That Year

Item from Oct 31, 1999, in China Daily: An increasing number of consumers prefer to use credit cards, or so-called electronic money, to pay their bills, rather than cash.

China is now leading the rest of the world in mobile payments. Last year, 65 percent of online payments in China were made using mobile devices, up from 49 percent in 2014, according to authorities. Experts expect this number to rise further in the next few years.

Chinese technology arguably leads the field in payment systems, notably with Alipay and Tenpay, whose QR code-based model has proved to be very popular with consumers.