BEIJING — The noncash payments handled by Chinese banks maintained steady expansion in the first quarter, with mobile payments sustaining growth momentum, the central bank said on June 2. 

Noncash payments, involving bank cards, online payment vehicles, commercial papers, credit transfer and other settlements, totaled 1,065.59 trillion yuan (about $167 trillion) in the first three months, up 20.65 percent year-on-year, according to the People's Bank of China.

Of the total, mobile payments sustained an upward trend to 130.14 trillion yuan, up 43.3 percent year-on-year.

The bank card transactions hit 254.94 trillion yuan in the first quarter, up 28.46 percent year-on-year.

China had 12.86 billion bank accounts at the end of March, up 2.55 percent from the previous quarter, but the growth rate was 0.5 percentage points lower than that at the end of the previous quarter.