China’s centralized clearinghouse for online payment has survived its largest challenge, the seven-day spring festival holiday. The clearinghouse has been handling all online transactions since June last year.
China’s central bank-backed NetsUnion Clearing Corporation revealed that between Feb 4th and Feb 10th, it handled a total of 4.55 billion online transactions, with a success rate of 100%.
The clearinghouse, with Alipay and Tenpay each holding a 10% stake, added that the number of transactions it handled per second peaked at 44,000 units.
During the country’s most important holiday, sending and receiving electric red envelopes filled with electronic cash posed the biggest pressure to the clearinghouse, followed by shopping and dining.
China’s most popular social media app WeChat revealed that a total of 823 million red envelopes were sent or received on its platform between Feb 4th and Feb 9th, up 7.12% year-on-year.
Baidu, which teamed up with Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television to distribute red envelopes during the world’s most-watched television show of the year—the Spring Festival Gala, revealed that the audience on Feb 4th shook their mobile phones for more than 20.6 billion times to grab red envelopes worth RMB 900 million (US$ 132.76) in total.
