Banking Online

China Knowledge has an interesting article on the development of e-commerce in the PRC. It's a good overview, but one thing in particular caught our eye. This follows on from other recent posts about the development of bank cards in China:

According to a recent survey conducted by the China Financial Certification Authority, about 10% of companies and 20% of private individuals in China’s ten major cities have adopted online banking services; these cities include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, among others. The survey also showed good growth for the rest of the year, with as much as 35.7% of individuals having the intention to use online banking services over the next one year.

In 2004, the number of Chinese online shoppers stood at 20 million, with nearly half of them adopting online payment systems such as Alibaba’s Alipay, Ebay’s PayPal and credit card methods, among others.

With a growing confidence in online banking and increasing ownership of bank cards, the key impediments to development of really serious e-commerce are rapidly disappearing in China.