Coins & Currency Replaced by Smartphone Apps in Chinese Cities Dramatically Quick

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/china-cashless-society-urban-no-paper-money-coins-economy-cities-a7847136.html

excerpt:
"Almost everyone in major Chinese cities is using a smartphone to pay for just about everything. At restaurants, a waiter will ask if you want to use WeChat or Alipay – the two smartphone payment options –before bringing up cash as a third, remote possibility.
Read more
Half of UK millennials want to plan their finances on a smartphone
Just as startling is how quickly the transition has happened. Only three years ago there would be no question at all, because everyone was still using cash."
-Just a taxpaying serf in Amerika
Quote: "SteveV"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/china-cashless-society-urban-no-paper-money-coins-economy-cities-a7847136.html

​excerpt:
​"Almost everyone in major Chinese cities is using a smartphone to pay for just about everything. At restaurants, a waiter will ask if you want to use WeChat or Alipay – the two smartphone payment options –before bringing up cash as a third, remote possibility.
​Read more
​Half of UK millennials want to plan their finances on a smartphone
​Just as startling is how quickly the transition has happened. Only three years ago there would be no question at all, because everyone was still using cash."

"As the country builds its entire consumer economy around two private smartphone payment platforms, it is slowly locking out people unable to get onto those networks, and locking itself into those companies.
At the simplest level, that makes life difficult for tourists and business travellers who are unlikely to open a bank account in China and so will find it hard to turn their phones into wallets."


That is frightening. What about when your phone breaks or is stolen? What if you don't want to fatten those 2 companies?
Quote: "BryanJ"
Quote: "SteveV"
​​http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/china-cashless-society-urban-no-paper-money-coins-economy-cities-a7847136.html
​​
​​excerpt:
​​"Almost everyone in major Chinese cities is using a smartphone to pay for just about everything. At restaurants, a waiter will ask if you want to use WeChat or Alipay – the two smartphone payment options –before bringing up cash as a third, remote possibility.
​​Read more
​​Half of UK millennials want to plan their finances on a smartphone
​​Just as startling is how quickly the transition has happened. Only three years ago there would be no question at all, because everyone was still using cash."
​​
"As the country builds its entire consumer economy around two private smartphone payment platforms, it is slowly locking out people unable to get onto those networks, and locking itself into those companies.
​At the simplest level, that makes life difficult for tourists and business travellers who are unlikely to open a bank account in China and so will find it hard to turn their phones into wallets."


​ That is frightening. What about when your phone breaks or is stolen? What if you don't want to fatten those 2 companies?
​Then you have to use cash or card and log into your alipay account on your pc.

What concerns me the most is the fact that goverments can very easily monitor our life through the gadgets we use, if our location (mobile tickets gps etc.), face (camera), finances, conversations and browsing history (targeted ads etc.) are centralized, it will be much easier than if all these things would be done with seperate gadgets.

It's technically possible to monitor quite literally all movement and actions by individuals when everything is centralized to a single gadget that is already fully monitored, in the future we may expect more fingerprint techology on phones, medical records, banking (no cash) and possibly even identification with dna in the future.

Imagine a world where everything you do, know and are somehow connected t can be simply but in a single file, this may come sooner than you expect.

Nothing politically radical here so no need to remove my message dear mods, monitoring people has advantages and disadvantages and I have my opinions about wether this is good or bad but I wont be sharing them in this post.
Numista referee for Finland
It really is scary. And monopolies are never a good thing either.
I'm very suspicious of the alarmist tone and what seems like exaggerations by the author. I traveled through China for more than a month in Dec 2014 and I used credit card almost all the time, except when I had to use cash buying from street vendors. I never felt handicapped at any point of time by the lack of a mobile wallet

I have local friends in Beijing and Shanghai who continue to use their credit cards and cash in addition to mobile payment apps just as we do here with interac, phone tap, Starbucks, QR etc etc.

Sure I agree that the trend forward is to link everything to your phone, but it's not going to happen overnight like this author is saying. The pitfall for China is that its opaque system can see these 2 players dominate the market with implicit official blessing. That can be scary from a consumer PoV as the mutual understanding is that it will help the communist party build a better surveillance mechanism

The Demonetisation move by the Indian govt earlier in the year saw a direct benefit to PayTM which I think acquired more customers in the couple months after the bills were withdrawn than their entire customer base before that point of their entire existence. Of course, in India, the upside is that this trend will attract more players to the market.

As far as the consumer is concerned, yes, there is an easy trail to track ones buying behavior and thanks to big data analytics, that can be used from everything like targeted advertising and insurance, to spying and espionage.
Outings administrator
Quote: "ashlobo"​I'm very suspicious of the alarmist tone and what seems like exaggerations by the author. I traveled through China for more than a month in Dec 2014 and I used credit card almost all the time, except when I had to use cash buying from street vendors. I never felt handicapped at any point of time by the lack of a mobile wallet


Well, one point the author is making is how quickly this happened (and around after the time you were there):
"Just as startling is how quickly the transition has happened. Only three years ago there would be no question at all, because everyone was still using cash."
Quote: "Hopeakettu"Then you have to use cash or card and log into your alipay account on your pc.

That's assuming the store still takes cash. But if someone steals your phone, and we know how easy it is to unlock these, is there a way to prevent them paying for stuff with your account?
There are already people out there who are totally committed to paying for things by just waving their phone in the general direction of a cash register, so I can't imagine there's much that can be done to prevent anyone from paying for something with a stolen phone at this point. I'm sure we'll invent something at some point but I don't think we're there yet are we?
Quote: "MonaSeaclaid"​There are already people out there who are totally committed to paying for things by just waving their phone in the general direction of a cash register, so I can't imagine there's much that can be done to prevent anyone from paying for something with a stolen phone at this point. I'm sure we'll invent something at some point but I don't think we're there yet are we?
When I think how easy it could be to wander around in buses and metros with a portable payment terminal and discreetly swipe it near peoples' phones B.
Quote: "BryanJ"
Quote: "MonaSeaclaid"​There are already people out there who are totally committed to paying for things by just waving their phone in the general direction of a cash register, so I can't imagine there's much that can be done to prevent anyone from paying for something with a stolen phone at this point. I'm sure we'll invent something at some point but I don't think we're there yet are we?
​ When I think how easy it could be to wander around in buses and metros with a portable payment terminal and discreetly swipe it near peoples' phones B.
​I use the wallet app with carefree abandon lol. However, I'm not worried that someone can just randomly hold a card reader to my backside and swipe money away from me electronically.

If the phone is locked, you cannot enable the wallet app without fingerprint recognition. In case your phone is stolen, that's the thing most people will realise they're missing almost instantly (at least the type who use mobile wallet) and it doesn't take much to call up the credit card company and cancel the card - certainly much quicker than the thieves can hack the phone.
Moreover, I have a RFID protected wallet, so people can try and wave a credit card reader as close to my ass as they can, they're not going to be able to take out money from my credit/debit card lol.

As far as the Chinese go, I did speak with my friend in Beijing a few days ago and asked him about this. He said that he does use wechat a lot more to make payments/flight bookings etc. But in his opinion, he could just as well have done that with credit cards, or in many cases even cash on delivery. For him, it's just quicker on wechat because it's all synced.
Outings administrator
Watching Chinese vloggers on YouTube, I am surprised. They have WeChat, which is like Facebook, Skype, Snapchat, and paypal all in one and you can use your bank account on WeChat to make simple payments.

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