Slowly, China Catches a Cashless Payment Wave

(Beijing) -- Fewer Chinese consumers will be digging for change at checkout counters in 2014 now that the country's largest telecoms and financial institutions have cleared a path for instant payments via mobile phones.

The dust is settling following debates that raged in 2012 and 2013 over which bandwidth frequency, smartphone technologies and transaction control systems should be adopted to standardize a nationwide, near-field communication (NFC) network aimed at simplifying and speeding consumer transactions.