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In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

nytimes.com

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Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#61

Post by usaphp »

hbarka wrote: post #51

Take the credit card swipe versus chip example. The chip is an improvement over the really old swipe tech in theory. In the US, using the chip is a terrible experience because it takes a lot longer for the process to complete. Why? Because merchant processors have no interest in putting the chips on a fast network because they can get higher fees on the swipe and conversely the stores are charged higher fees for enab…

The faster the lines are moving - the more transactions per day can a store process, thus more fees for processor. I don't see a logical reason for processors to artificially slow down payment process just for a tiny fee difference, no? plus they theoretically get less chargebacks and fraud activity with chips.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#62

Post by Madelyn565 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #39
thablackbull wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disagreeing with anything you said but I suppose I am more commenting on the difference in attitude and execution. While services like Android/Watsapp were created in the West and do service the lower end market, they still follow the "leader", isn't seen by the population as "cool/hip/etc." Even with credit cards, there are many merchants here that don't accept them (especially Amex) and Visa because of the…

Chinese banks are pretty bad innovation wise, which is why it took tencent and alibaba to run this through. Even unionpay, with lower fees, fails to catch on because the banks kind of suck. Try dealing with a fraud report to Icbc, for example.

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Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#63

Post by rahimnathwani »

inlined wrote: post #57

I recently took a trip to Shanghai and Kyoto and was blown away by this. In Shanghai even the taxis displayed their QR to accept payments. Kyoto accepted WePay and AliPay; the latter was most impressive because I was told AliPay requires the Chinese equivalent of a SSN

Alipay overseas (e.g. in Kyoto) only works for Chinese citizens.

Anecdote: I tried to pay with Alipay in a Uniqlo store on my last trip to Japan. The payment failed, so I paid by card instead. A minute later I received an SMS from Alipay telling me it was because international payments are only available to Chinese ID card holders.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#64

Post by rahimnathwani »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #20
Taniwha wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No - they can use one hand to chat whilst getting cash out of a pocket with the other.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#65

Post by rahimnathwani »

tristanj wrote: post #23

If you are curious how smartphone payments work in practice, Here's a video of someone using Wechat Pay to order squeezed-to-order orange juice from a vending machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um53J3shL7I In practice, scanning and paying is much faster than shown in the video. He is using an old phone, on a newer one scanning the barcode takes around 0.5 second and the verification takes 2-5 seconds (not 15 sec…

This should be the top comment.

To me, the mode where the store scans your temporary payment QR code (like in McDonald's) feels like signature-less swiping in Starbucks in the US. You can't confirm the amount beforehand in either case. But the WeChat way seems more secure, as no one can clone my temporary QR code.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#66

Post by Nathalie45 »

DannyBee wrote: post #59
mahyarm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android was released a couple years after the iphone and it has defined the low end market. From the USA. A big reason why QR codes caught on in China is because everything else was really bad. In america, credit cards were 'good enough' compared to what was in china, so QR codes didn't catch on that quickly. Also because it's a wealthier nation, the typical merchant could afford the hardware required for processing…

"Android was released a couple years after the iphone " This is a really interesting history rewrite, since it was released a year and 3 months later. It also didn't define the low end of the market, since at that point, the iphone was just getting apps (2 months earlier is when the apple app store was released)!

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Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#67

Post by justjimmy »

lyricat wrote: post #29
itchap wrote: post #28

I have been living in Shanghai for few years now. Alipay and Wechat are really a big thing. It is far from the vision of mobile payment people have in Europe for example, where it is more of solution for small payments. People are using Alipay and Wechat pay for everything, being online shopping, restaurants, supermarkets, train tickets, electricity, water, even some tax declaration. So it is not just a replacement t…

Or phone stolen.

Or wallet stolen (arguing for the other side).

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#68

Post by justjimmy »

And for those rare places that only do cash, it's not uncommon for the person in line to turn around and ask a stranger for cash and they'll pay that person in a WeChat transfer. Done in seconds. Happened to me and observed it myself a couple of times.

With digital wallets, there's zero need for credit cards and their predatory interest rates.

China is just absolutely crushing it. The Amazon Self Serve store that's still in testing in USA? Tao Bao pushed their version and it went live last week.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#69

Post by rz2k »

I was sure I'd read a lot of comments from people living in China who disagreed, because of this column[1] as well as a few others like it.

However, I realize that column is almost 50 months old. At the time it was part of a worry, because it was very difficult for anyone to understand what was going on in the Chinese economy and therefore which economic policies would be harmful. (Eg. stimulus during bubble, or tightening during stress)

Has cash really become a lot less popular in the past few years?

[1] http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/01/on-getting-paid-in-wads-...

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#70

Post by rahimnathwani »

NamTaf wrote: post #52

Everyone in Australia just uses paypass/paywave contactless payment with their credit cards. I rarely carry any signifiant amount of crash for that reason. It's essentially the same as using your phone except you use your credit card and doesn't require a PIN or anything for signature is no longer allowed . Without having used WeChat's approach with QR code scanning, it doesn't seem that different for the end user in…

"Without having used WeChat's approach with QR code scanning, it doesn't seem that different for the end user in practice."

The difference is that anyone can accept WeChat payments, no matter how small their transaction volume.

I haven't been to Australia since 2002, so am a little out of touch. Are there small businesses like fruit stands? Do they take paypass/paywave?

What about buskers?

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