Standard for mobile payments to launch

A national standard for China's financial mobile payment is expected to be released in the near future, piloted by the People's Bank of China, said Lu Shuchun, vice-director of the bank's science and technology department.

The mobile payment standard will adopt the internationally common 13.56 MHz technology. Near field communication mobile phones, based on the technology, will become leaders in the mobile payment market.

China Unicom will launch the first near field payment products. It is among the three largest telecoms operators in China. The company introduced a device jointly with China Merchant Bank on Monday.

China's mobile payment sponsors had to choose a spectrum of either 13.56 MHz or 2.4 GHz. China Union Pay supports the former and China Mobile prefers the latter.

The 2.4 GHz scheme has many technical advantages, such as strong penetrability and supporting remote data updates.

However, industry insiders said the technical edge is not the only consideration. Telecom operators need to cooperate with banks to form a technical standard that suits the financial industry.

The PBOC gathered together commercial banks, China Union Pay and telecom operators to establish a mobile payment standard writing team in April that chose 13.56 MHz to be the current payment standard.