China UnionPay Reports Strong Growth in Cell Phone-Based Payments

Chinese bank card payment union China UnionPay announced yesterday in a press  release that the company’s cell phone-based payments added 4.95 million users in 2007, bringing its total user number to more than 10 million. Cell phone-based transfers totaled 10.8 billion RMB ($1.5 billion). The lack of reliable and scalable payment systems has been an inhibitor for e-commerce in China. Growing usage of credit cards and cell phone-based payments is expected to facilitate more e-commerce transactions.