There is a need to explore ways to use innovative technology to leapfrog traditional barriers to bringing formal financial services to China's large under-banked population.

Despite the huge strides made in China to socially and economically include citizens and lift them out of poverty, roughly 36 percent of China's population remains underserved by formal financial institutions, according to a 2011 World Bank study.

Many of these people do not have a bank account at a formal financial institution. While 36 percent may not sound like much, data from the National Bureau of Statistics in China indicate that it represented 485 million people of the Chinese mainland population in 2011, which is larger than the populations of the United States and Russia combined.