China has set up a national NFC-based mobile payment platform to unify communications between financial institutions and mobile network operators, China Daily reports.

The platform "provides a solid infrastructure foundation to help China boost domestic information consumption and make the sector a new driver for economic growth," Li Dongrong, People's Bank of China Deputy Governor, told China Daily.

China Construction Bank, China CITIC Bank, China Everbright Bank, China UnionPay and China Mobile Communications are currently connected to the platform, which began trial operations at the end of 2013.

Few countries have successfully built a single platform to link financial institutions and mobile operators, Colin Light, China digital consulting leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Hong Kong, told China Daily. Without standards, it is difficult to achieve scale and widespread acceptance of mobile payments, Light said.

NFC accounted for just 0.8 percent of China's mobile payments market in 2013, according to iResearch. The lack of NFC-enabled phones is an obstacle to the adoption of NFC payments, Wang Weidong, iResearch analyst, told China Daily. "There are many hoops to jump through before the technology can compete with the popular Internet-based mobile payment system, Alipay," he said.

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