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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

#271

Post by dis-sys »

yufeng66 wrote: post #270

One important factor is the Chinese government view cash as necessary evil. They prefer the money to be in the digital form to avoid issues such as grey economy and difficulty in collecting tax. As such they refuse to issue large denomination cash bills. The largest RMB bill is only 100, which is about 13 USD. It was first issued in 1988, when the nominal GDP was only about 2% of the current size. Obviously this make…

It is the other way around: it has been repeatedly reported that there is no plan to issue larger denomination Yuan because the online payment systems are already doing the job for eliminating cash.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#272

Post by theylon »

pmontra wrote: post #127
theylon wrote: post #50

Living in China for the past two years - Important thing to remember - in China and in most of South-East Asia the tech boom came at a later stage when smartphones were already prominent. Android + Chinese manufacturing made it possible to produce cheap smart phones. The result is that these countries have completely skipped the laptop phase and went straight to smartphones, most of the population doesn't even know w…

I've been in China as a tourist for three weeks two years ago. I paid everything with cash. Easy. What would I do now if I have to pay with WeChat and I obviously don't have a Chinese bank account? Tourists don't have time to waste in banks and unless bank accounts are created and activated on the fly it would be pointless to open one. Maybe open an account in advance from home? Is that possible? Or WeChat and Alipay…

You don't actually need to have a bank account in order to use Wechat payment. Someone can just send you money over wechat and it would still work, just a 1000rmb/month limitation. If you're a tourist it should be fine.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#273

Post by gutnor »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #135
RealityNow wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in NYC, and most stores seem to have $5-10 credit card minimums. America needs to admit that it's no longer the bastion of innovation that it once was (I say this as an American. If anyone doesn't believe me, just take a trip to East Asia). Americans are complacent and fine with not having the cutting edge (not to mention our failing infrastructure). I wish there was a way to change this attitude, but it feels…

Went to the donut shop, got a $1.50 donut with a credit card, no minimums here in LA. This NYC place sounds fairly strange. I lived in Beijing for 9 years. It changed much since then, but the tech brought out was solving mostly local problems with local solutions. When I started living there, I used to pay for rent by withdrawing 20K or so RMB from the ATM machine (in 100 bills), loading it into a bag, then giving it…

The amazing internet infrastructure in Korea caused them to develop many service that relied on Internet Explorer, preventing them to pick up new standard as easily as countries that were later to the party.

That's probably the same kind of stuff here. The US did develop a universal non-cash system decades before other countries and now is stuck with its quirks. Europe started later and is slightly better. China started even later and could just use the fact that even poor people had an internet connected computer with them at all times except in the shower.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#274

Post by smw »

dullgiulio wrote: post #195
mahyarm wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as payment terminals go, there is no effective difference between credit or debit cards, and in the USA they accept both :)

There are some differences behind the scenes. A week ago I was in this restaurant and I had almost no cash (as usual where I live in Northern EU); the restaurant terminals were rejecting debit cards from the two biggest banks in the country. After several attempts, I just paid with my credit card (which is configured to pay immediately from the account, not at end of month) and that worked. That's probably because a…

I think in the US, that type of card is referred to as a 'check card', and is basically a bank debit card with the additional ability to run it as a credit network (usually Visa) transaction with signature instead of PIN entry. Is that similar to what you have?

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#275

Post by Mikushi »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #18
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #15

I 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 credi…

> Mobile payments haven't taken off in the west because credit cards have worked well enough

Yeah but no. Come in the UK and you'll see that mobile payments are seeing widespread acceptance. I can go weeks without having to pull my Debit or Credit Card.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#276

Post by hunvreus »

I haven't had cash on me for more than a year now.

I use Alipay or WeChat for pretty much anything: groceries, bills, plane tickets, hotels, rent...

I actually have to use LastPass to remember the codes of my debit/credit cards.

Even traveling to Hong Kong feels backward; you have to go to an ATM, get money and then struggle with change in your pockets for the rest of the week.

I really hope this trend goes global and helps create a more competitive space for banks; it would be good to see them trying to innovate a bit.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#277

Post by thehardsphere »

lostboys67 wrote: post #246
thehardsphere wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to, because they can take the 1% out of your wallet by printing more pieces of paper with dead politicians faces on it.

Not the same one of the Baltic countries has openly speculated about taking money directly from peoples bank accounts.

Ahh yes, that is different, and worth being paranoid about if you live in one of those countries where it's an idea people in power are considering.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#278

Post by jazzyk »

intended wrote: post #150
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people pay their balance off every month in the USA. Credit card doesn't mean borrowing. The big problem with credit cards in China is fraud: banks like ICBC will put the burden of proof on the card holder when a fraud transaction occurs, rather than the merchant as in the west. I really hate ICBC. Anyways, debit cards work just like QR pay does, just like UnionPay already does. The problem QR codes are…

It doesn't matter how American's treat credit cards. Traditionally China is known as a nation where people save, and debt was not seen favorably at all . This is a cultural thing, which has likely been wearing out since the 1990s.

Debt has never been seen favorably in almost any culture - even in the US, before the 80s.

I think it was the Reagan administration made credit card debt interest tax-deductible and the cat was out of the bag.

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#279

Post by jrimbault »

tormeh wrote: post #266
uiri wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the statement as the US system - both at the state and the federal levels - is working the way it was designed to work. Given its growth - in both population and territory - since its founding, that it is still in existence with the same constitution is no small feat.

>that it is still in existence with the same constitution is no small feat I would call that a defeat. The US constitution is clearly past its sell-by date.

I like thinking about the law as if it was code.

Code that you can't test and debug before running in prod.

And in which you're allowed to not check certain cases. (when writing code, you can omit checking bad input, but you're not morally allowed to do so)

Re: In Urban China, Cash Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete

#280

Post by brisance »

allengeorge wrote: post #257

Perhaps another factor in this shift is that there's a higher incidence (anecdotally) of counterfeit bills - especially larger notes?

The largest renminbi bill is worth about 14.7 USD. I think it would factor into why people would go cashless.
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