Deliver a payment order via Didi， will you？”This is a common sentence the taxi drivers of Beijing and other cities in China speak to passengers. Those taking taxis frequently also find that many navigators in front of taxi drivers have been replaced by smartphones， from which the requests for a ride come out time and again.

Didi is an app based on which passengers could call taxis and pay the fees. Those taxi-calling apps， as well as the mobile shopping， and “red bag” of WeChart， have become hot words in the Chinese Internet world. Behind these is the explosive development of mobile payment.

However， when the rage of mobile payment has made many people know the conveniences of this innovation， it also reveals several defects of this pat- tern， the most debated and important one of which is： is your mobile wallet safe enough？

The cracks and bugs in the safety of QR code payment， which were revealed in the “March 15 evening” （an event to have a collective revelation of quality problems of products and services in China）， has unnerved many consumers. Many people， including the mobile payment service suppliers， have recognized that the safety issue might be straining the mobile payment and hindering its development. Therefore， how to lower the risk of mobile payment has become the most popular topic in that industry. In addition， some experts said that NFC （Near Field Communication） payment， mobile U-shield and “universal card in cities” are to be the highlights of the competition in mobile payment in the future.

The Increase in Mobile Payment on Holiday

Every “May 1st” holiday is the peak time of tourism. This years holiday is not an exception. And， with the development of the smart devices， peoples travel is more and more closely related to the mobile payment.

Travelzoo， a famous website of tourism， recently published The Report of the Trend of Tourism in Asian-Pacific Area in 2014， which mentioned the three trends of mobile payment in the tourism.

No. 1： the Chinese people have the biggest willingness to try mobile payment during their travel. In the entire Asian area， 50% of the respondents are willing to use mobile devices to pay for their travel， while 73% of Chinese people are willing to do so.

No. 2： the single value of the mobile payment order increased fast. Among all users that have ordered and paid for the tourism products via mobile devices， 45% paid the amount of between 300 and 1800 yuan； 26% of them have paid for the order or products with the value higher than 3，600 yuan.

No. 3： more and more people are willing to pay through the mobile webpages. According to the statistical data in 2013， 34% of the users are willing to pay via apps 40% prefer webpages while 17% and 9% are willing to pay via Microblog and WeChat.

Prof. Lu Yanjie from Beijing University of Post and Communications， who is also the vice predent of Beijing Council of Information Economy， said that the “great willingness of users to make big payment through mobile devices will become the new features of the mobile payment for the tourism in the next few years.”

In addition， such a trend also urged many Internet platforms into actions. They are all busy launching promotional events to contend for the ever-growing pie. The “May 1st” holiday was just a beginning as more actions will come at heels in the following time.

New Measures of Traditional Financial Institutions

The practitioners are sparing no efforts in spreading the mobile payment. He Xinchu， vice general manager of China Mobiles payment department， said that the company will give users who buy the smartphones with NFC functions the subsidies of 30 yuan per unit in order to promote the NFC ter-minals. Alipay， the biggest payment tool in China， launched the new version of mobile payment， allowing the users to recharge their bus cards via NFC...

The mobile payment， which serves as an important access to the realm of mobile Internet， is repeatedly growing its applications. New patterns of online and offline businesses emerge out and combine several industries. Along with this are the increasing safety awareness of users and the improved protection measures. Therefore， it is widely believed that the mobile payment is going to keep its high-speed growth in the year of 2014.

Even the traditional financial institutions in China， which claimed to be greatly threatened by the mobile payment， have to turn to this new pattern. UnionPay recently united with Bank of Communications and mobile phone manufacturer ZTE to launch their own mobile payment product “Mini IC Card”， which was initially used in Guangdong for experimental purposes. This new product based on the financial IC card is said to be able to grab the users with its convenient， user-friendly and safe features.

It is known that the “Mini IC Card”is a financial IC card as small as a SIM card. Users need to input this card in the designated mobile phones with the NFC function and can realize the fast payment on UnionPays terminals compatible with the “flash payment”. In addition， when users install relevant Apps onto their smartphones， they can enjoy multiple distances like cash transmittance， recharging communication fees and repaying the credit card balance. They could also find the information about promotional events staged by the retailers near their locations.

Coincidentally， Industrial and Commercial Bank of China （ICBC）， the largest bank in this country， launched its own e-banking payment tool “e-payment of ICBC” in early May. This new product is said to allow users to finish the payment and transmittance valuing lower than 3000 yuan via PC or mobile terminals without any other devices or services.

According to the promotional article from the website of ICBC， all users that have activated the direct online payment in their ICBC accounts or connected their third-party payment tools to ICBC can finish the payment via“e-payment of ICBC” with almost one button as long as they have activated this function.

All they need is a mobile phone which could receive the verification code ICBC send them for their application of payment. It is similar to the champion Alipays methods， but the “epayment of ICBC” now caps the value of single payment at 3000 yuan， lower than the one Alipay previous allowed.

“The ICBC set this limit in consideration of the safety of users information， privacy and account，” said Lu Yanjie. “This also affected Alipay， since all users have connected their Alipay accounts to the bank cards of ICBC or other banks in China. It is apparent that the traditional financial institutions are using both the innovative and administrative methods to compete with the new payment pattern brought by the technologies.”

Frequent Bugs Call for Uniformed Standards

Wang Weidong， an analyst from iResearch， said that Chinese bankslowering the upper limit of mobile payment was a result of their concerns over the safety issues in that field. Their worries are not groundless. There are a lot of reports about the stolen identities and assets from Alipay and other fast payment tools， showing that the convenience of the rising technology is accompanied by the bugs.

Banks， which have the obligations to protect their users assets， of course do not want to pay for the loss of usersassets caused by the bugs and problems of the third-payment tools.

According to the latest statistical data from Baidu， the biggest worries that haunt the mobile payment users include the possible abuse of the mobile payment accounts if they lose their smartphone， the stolen accounts and passwords of e-banking， the possible disruption by virus and Trojan programs， and the traps of fishing sites.

On April 8， the OpenSSLs safety issues were found and used， bringing damages to over 30 thousand mainframes in China. 30% of the sites starting with https， including Taobao， NetEast and other large websites， are not free from the influence. 50% of the mobile e-banking accounts based on smartphones are reportedly exposed to risks. This incident is considered to be a turning event of Internet safety in China.

The current way of identification in mobile Internet is largely based on the verification code in the SMS sent to users mobile phones. Therefore， once the SIM card is duplicated or the mobile phone is hacked to have the SMS moved to another designated mobile phone， the wrongdoers might control the users mobile phones without letting them know and steal their assets behind the doors.

“This is particularly the case in the mobile payment， since the SMS-based verification is commonly used， an easy target for the hackers，” said the expert.

“Mobile payment can be simply explained in a two-way pattern： users send the payment order to the servers of banks， including the receivers account and payment amount， via smartphones and tablets， and in return the banksservers send a verification code with which the users can finish the payment. The criminals might cut off one way of this pattern by hacking the users mo- bile phones to transfer the assets，” said Wang Weidong.

Thats why ICBC and other commercial banks are shrinking the access to the fast payment tools. “We are going to clear out the access of third-payment tools to banking accounts of us and apply a uniformed rule with other banks，”said Li Zhenjiang， managing director of Agricultural Bank of China.

“Previously， the commercial banks had an indifferent attitude towards the connection of third-party payment tools to the banking accounts as long as they dif not affect their working of attracting deposits，” said an insider from a Beijing-based commercial bank.

But this attitude definitely needs to change – and actually it is changing– in the current situation with the fast development of mobile payment. In the traditional pattern， the banks and thirdparty payment tools are independent from each other in the payment and safety protection. In the time of mobile Internet， there come out the third-party suppliers of third-party accreditation. The ever-increasing number of practitioners and the market size require the regulatory departments to build up the coordination mechanism to protect the consumers interests and rights.