--FILE--A Chinese mobile phone user shows the icons of the mobile apps (from left) messaging app Weixin, or WeChat, of Tencent, mobile wallet UnionPay Wallet launched by China UnionPay and Alipay, the online payment service of Alibaba's Ant Financial, on his smartphone in Ji'nan city, east China's Shandong province, 11 June 2017. China had a total of 527 million mobile payment users at the end of last year, up by 57.8 million from a year before, said a report released by the China Internet Network Information Center on Jan. 31. According to a news conference held by China's State Council Information Office at the end of last month, the country's online payment transactions totaled 150 trillion yuan ($23.8 trillion) by October 2017, ranking first in the world. WeChat Pay, one of China's major mobile payment service providers, attracted over 800 million validated users by September 2017. The number of monthly offline payments was 280% higher than that from a year ago. In addition, WeChat Pay has seen more and more frequent users.
