Alipay claims to be world's No. 1 mobile payment company

Alipay, a leading Chinese third-party payment platform, has become the largest mobile payment provider in the world based on user and transaction volume. The subsidiary of Internet firm Alibaba Group had nearly 300 million registered users by the end of last year. Over 100 million of them accessed Alipay services via mobile phones. Alipay's mobile users made nearly 2.8 billion transactions and spent 148 billion US dollars by the end of last year. Moreover, about 81-percent of Chinese web users access the internet through their mobile phones. For more on the potentials and risks of mobile payment, we're joined live now by Mike Bastin, Visiting Professor at China's University of International Business and Economics. Questions 1. How big of an impact do you think mobile payment or online financing will have on our daily lives? How long do you think it will take until all the transactions we make, whether it be shopping, dining, entertainment can all be done with a smartphone? 2. The online payment market has potential for all kinds of companies and services. Can you make any predictions over what kind of goods, services, or companies we may soon see shaping the future of online payment? 3. How will Chinese banks respond to Alipay? How is risk control taken into consideration for these pioneering these online financially innovative services? Who is responsible for supervising online payment? What's this about the super successful 'red envelope gifts' offered by WeChat and Alipay? That's Mike Bastin, Visiting Professor at China's University of International Business and Economics.