Another 26 per cent of consumers carry less than 100 yuan and about 74 per cent said they can survive for over one month with only 100 yuan (Bt509) cash in their pocket, the report said.

The report also said that 84 per cent of people in China said they are “comfortable” going out with only mobile phones and no cash.

Non-bank payment organisations handled a total of 97 billion mobile payment transactions from 2013 to 2016, with an annual compound growth rate over 195 per cent, according to the China Payment and Clearing Association.

8.6 bn payments in Q2

Chinese banks dealt with 8.6 billion payments from mobile services in Q2, up 40.5 per cent from a year ago, the People’s Bank of China said.

The combined value of mobile payments jumped 33.8 per cent to 39.24 trillion yuan and online transactions through non-bank payment platforms came in at 31.49 trillion yuan, rising 34.9 per cent from the same period last year, Xinhua reported.

WeChat Pay is the main mobile payment method for Chinese consumers’ daily small transactions and it had over 938 million active uses per month in Q1, with 23 per cent year-on-year growth, according to Ipsos.

As the first country in the world to use paper money, China is expected to also become the first to stop using paper money due to the soaring popularity of mobile payment platforms, China Daily reported, citing analyst forecasts on July 24.