The Cashless Society Has Arrived: How Mobile Phone Payment Dominance Emerged in China

Abstract

This study explores from a consumer perspective the underlying factors that made China a cashless society. The results of principal component analysis (PCA) show that four major factors influenced the high Mpay adoption in China: government support and sponsorship, simple to use technology infrastructure QR Code rather than the NFC technology, ease of use convenience and safety of the Mpay apps, and savings incentives because of the lack of any associated fees with Mpay transactions both for the consumer and small businesses. Favorable government regulatory framework or lack thereof being the major enabler of the primarily wide Mpay adoption in China, in addition to the direct Chinese government sponsorship of Mpay use as the most important antecedent factors influencing the adoption of Mpay in China, where a government sponsorship and sanctioning for economic development and financial services inclusion purposes led to the burgeoning of this FinTech innovation in China.