In urban USA, cash is pretty rare too. Almost everyone uses credit.
In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete
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Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete
#12This brings me back to college days... when you could use your student ID to pay for everything instantly. And the ID# was encoded on the magnetic strip unencrypted.
Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete
#13I had the most surreal experience in the Shenzhen airport the other day. I was out of cash, with only my credit cards and Android pay. There was no place in the entire airport that I could pay with Visa or Mastercard - the first time I felt truly helpless in China. Uber didn't work either. I was forced to set up WeChat pay, which works absolutely everywhere.
Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete
#14I had the most surreal experience in the Shenzhen airport the other day. I was out of cash, with only my credit cards and Android pay. There was no place in the entire airport that I could pay with Visa or Mastercard - the first time I felt truly helpless in China. Uber didn't work either. I was forced to set up WeChat pay, which works absolutely everywhere.
I'm guessing this has come about because VISA and Mastercard are US companies, where as WeChat is Chinese owned?
Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete
#15I think this article hit the nail on the head when it pointed out that being ahead of the curve at one time (with Japan and their advanced flip phones in the early 2000s) can make it harder to adopt the next big advance because what you have is already "good enough".
Thus, in the US, I suspect that mobile payments haven't taken off as much because they are only very slightly faster to use than a credit card, as opposed to cash, which is much slower with people counting out amounts and cashiers counting out change. Before Android Pay came out and there was Google Wallet, I tried using Google Wallet but was super disappointed - it failed about 5% of the time, where my credit cards almost never failed. Lately, though, I've started using Android Pay and I've been really impressed. Just one tap with my phone and it's done, and it's very reliable. Still, though, it's really only slightly faster than swiping my credit card, especially for small amounts where a signature isn't required.
Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete
#16Surprised that QR codes are not more ubiquitous in the USA. Seems like a great platform.
I don't think it would be much of a stretch to get people used to them. The concept is already there with mobile boarding passes and some phone-displays-barcode loyalty apps like the one for Starbucks.
Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete
#17I had the most surreal experience in the Shenzhen airport the other day. I was out of cash, with only my credit cards and Android pay. There was no place in the entire airport that I could pay with Visa or Mastercard - the first time I felt truly helpless in China. Uber didn't work either. I was forced to set up WeChat pay, which works absolutely everywhere.
Not everywhere takes WeChat pay. AliPay is slightly more common. Businesses prefer AliPay for their lower interchange fees. Though I'd estimate 80-90% of places in cities take one or the other.
Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete
#18I think this article hit the nail on the head when it pointed out that being ahead of the curve at one time (with Japan and their advanced flip phones in the early 2000s) can make it harder to adopt the next big advance because what you have is already "good enough". Thus, in the US, I suspect that mobile payments haven't taken off as much because they are only very slightly faster to use than a credit card, as oppos…
Mobile payments haven't taken off in the west because credit cards have worked well enough. In china, lots of small-scale businesses lack POS terminals while Chinese banks put the burden of proof in case of fraud on the card user, rather than the merchant as in the west. Using a credit card in china is an absolute PITA.
Since returning to the states from china, I've been happily surprised that I can just tap my credit card to pay at many terminals. This still pales in comparison to austrailia, where this tap to pay seems to be ubiquitous.
Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete
#19Can confirm, in most supermarket, paying take literally one second. You pull out your phone and show your Alipay/WeChat QR code, the cashier scans it and 1 second later it's done. People paying in cash is a small minority Speeding up lines, they also can have more clients for less cashiers In France, most people pay with a bank card, the rest with cash. The process is longer and less user friendly
Take out card, put on NFC reader, get out. One problem is the 20€ limit though.
Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete
#20Can confirm, in most supermarket, paying take literally one second. You pull out your phone and show your Alipay/WeChat QR code, the cashier scans it and 1 second later it's done. People paying in cash is a small minority Speeding up lines, they also can have more clients for less cashiers In France, most people pay with a bank card, the rest with cash. The process is longer and less user friendly
Yeah but you do have to wait for the kid in front of you to finish chatting to his friends before switching to the payment part of wechat
You’d have to wait even if they paid with cash, no?