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BEIJING, Feb. 5-- China's inter-bank payment and settlement system passed a tough test on Lunar New Year's eve as the Chinese zealously snatched lucky money in virtual red envelopes for good fortune. China UnionPay, a leading payment network, processed inter-bank payment and settlement deals worth 261.7 billion yuan (about 39 billion U.S. dollars) Monday night, the Lunar New Year's eve, up 81.3 percent from the same day of last year, Shanghai Securities News reported Tuesday on its APP. The average response time for each deal processed by China UnionPay's network was only 220 milliseconds, and no deals failed. Citing sources with China UnionPay, the newspaper said the country's inter-bank payment system had been "well tested in a reality check." As authorized by the People's Bank of China, China UnionPay handled only a portion of the country's inter-bank payment and settlement needs during the Spring Festival, which mainly involves the Wechat red packets launched by Tencent and Baidu red packets. Giving cash in red envelopes (hongbao) is a traditional practice during the Spring Festival and it has been shifting online thanks to the promotion of mobile payment in which people use apps to send, snatch and draw virtual hongbaos on their smartphones. The digital red envelope race during the Chinese New Year holiday has become a new tradition since Tencent made a splash in 2017 with the hongbao service on its popular instant messaging app WeChat, drawing millions of new users for its mobile payment service. | 
