Iikka Korhonen, Bank of Finland: The paper provides an excellent overview of many aspects of China's mobile payments sector. In a relatively short time this sector has developed from almost scratch to one of the most advanced in the world. In addition, the paper utilizes measures of digital financial inclusion (Wang et al. 2019) to assess several aspects of Chinese households’ behavior and, for example, risk-sharing.
Section 2 is interesting in the way it recounts the history of China's mobile payment industry. It recounts the rapid development of the industry, especially during the past five to six years. In addition, the network effects described in Sections 2 and 3 highlight an interesting organic development of a virtual duopoly in the Chinese mobile payment industry. In addition, they highlight how regulation—or, more precisely, lack of it—has allowed Chinese companies to innovate at a rapid pace and start utilizing novel technologies...