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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

by NamTaf 9y ago

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 <$100. Once I have a transaction over $100 I can tap and enter my pin, or use chip and PIN, or if everything fails occasionally I need to swipe and PIN. Most critically, 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 practice. Either way, you're scanning an object you carry against some target environment and a merchant is processing the transaction for you. It's even closer once you use eg: Apple Pay with your CCs loaded into the Apple system - you're tapping your phone rather than scanning via the camera. I'm guessing that the CC infrastructure simply wasn't there and pushing out EFTPOS units was a far higher barrier to entry than simply running an app on your newly acquired cheap chinese smartphone. As such, the CC merchants missed the boat whereas the big phone app companies got in on the ground floor. On the flipside, many Western countries had all the EFTPOS terminals already, so contactless just became the next iteration on that. I don't really necessarily agree with the problem of the country building their commerce systems around Tencent, etc. as 'private companies' since most of the west hinges on Visa, Mastercard and to a lesser extent Amex. They're all private companies too. Maybe the government will step in and standardise the QR code system eventually to reduce the risk. I don't really see it playing out much differently to how the West did with CC contactless.

Lxr 9y ago
A major difference is that you can pay any other person with Alipay. If a friend buys you lunch, you pay them back by scanning a QR code on their phone.
- dis-sys 9y ago
  or devices there are currently 10 million ofo/mobike shared bikes, 700k were added to Beijing in a single month (May 2017). there is simply no way you can attach a card reader to every single one of them.
rahimnathwani 9y ago
"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?
- NamTaf 9y ago
  That's a very valid point. Not everyone can become a payment recipient with this with the same barrier to entry. In that sense, it's definitely less flexible and I guess that's where FB and co. have tried to make inroads with cash transfer. I know Commonwealth Bank made an in-house system for doing instant and easy transfers from an app like that. Regarding your question, anyone who previously took a CC via an EFTPOS terminal would now take paypass/paywave. It's not ubquituous amongst the standard sunday market/food truck retailers, but it's not uncommon. I went to a French food and wine festival a couple of weeks ago and the majority of them used EFTPOS, but they also not infrequently do the market circuit. Essentially, anywhere that previously had EFTPOS now naturally has contactless, and as the critical mass of people who don't carry cash grows, more smaller retailers are pressured into getting EFTPOS. The terminals are handheld, battery powered and connected to the mobile network now so you don't even need electricity. Granted, I don't see a time when buskers end up get EFTPOS terminals.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
keiwo 9y ago
I'd assume the fee for receiving funds through WeChat QR is significantly lower than the transaction fee for paypass in Australia, which might explain why so many stores have a minimum for card.
- kondro 9y ago
  Fees for PayPass/PayWave on debit cards in Australia is 7.5¢.
  - ajdlinux 9y ago
    Though, in general, if you accept debit cards in Australia you need to accept that network's credit cards too. My Visa Platinum is going to be more than 7.5c for most transactions, I imagine.
grecy 9y ago
> Everyone in Australia just uses paypass/paywave contactless payment with their credit cards It's the same in Canada. Whenever I go to the US I feel like I'm going backwards in time.
incompatible 9y ago
I'm still puzzled about why lost cards aren't more of an issue with paywave. Does the bank always refund the losses? If so, what's to stop you spending money for a week and then claiming to the bank that none of the transactions were yours?
- ian0 9y ago
  Both of these problems occur with regular cards too (liability shift & chargeback). Generally the bank will pay for transactions if your card is stolen. They also have checks in place to reduce the scalability of fake chargebacks by customers (friendly fraud) - though its difficult to eliminate completely.
dis-sys 9y ago
Let me share a few real life use cases for you - when I go to pubs/restaurants with friends in Shanghai, one of us would be using AliPay to pay for the whole bill, then he/she would be using AliPay's "AA Pay" feature to show the QR code to get money from everyone. I guess your paywave card won't help you on that. shared bike is extremely popular these days, it costs you $10c for a one hour ride. paywave card is useless for such innovative products - the amount of each transaction is too small, plus you don't want to see a card reader on each bike as there are 10 million such bikes now. EFTPOS style devices were popular in China, the quarterly statement from Chinese central bank shows that around 6 billion debit cards and half billion credit cards were issued in total. http://www.pcac.org.cn/file/File/1490069955.pdf http://www.pcac.org.cn/file/File/1490069955.pdf

by NamTaf 9y ago

Lxr 9y ago

A major difference is that you can pay any other person with Alipay. If a friend buys you lunch, you pay them back by scanning a QR code on their phone.

dis-sys 9y ago
or devices there are currently 10 million ofo/mobike shared bikes, 700k were added to Beijing in a single month (May 2017). there is simply no way you can attach a card reader to every single one of them.

rahimnathwani 9y ago

"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?

NamTaf 9y ago
That's a very valid point. Not everyone can become a payment recipient with this with the same barrier to entry. In that sense, it's definitely less flexible and I guess that's where FB and co. have tried to make inroads with cash transfer. I know Commonwealth Bank made an in-house system for doing instant and easy transfers from an app like that. Regarding your question, anyone who previously took a CC via an EFTPOS terminal would now take paypass/paywave. It's not ubquituous amongst the standard sunday market/food truck retailers, but it's not uncommon. I went to a French food and wine festival a couple of weeks ago and the majority of them used EFTPOS, but they also not infrequently do the market circuit. Essentially, anywhere that previously had EFTPOS now naturally has contactless, and as the critical mass of people who don't carry cash grows, more smaller retailers are pressured into getting EFTPOS. The terminals are handheld, battery powered and connected to the mobile network now so you don't even need electricity. Granted, I don't see a time when buskers end up get EFTPOS terminals.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

keiwo 9y ago

I'd assume the fee for receiving funds through WeChat QR is significantly lower than the transaction fee for paypass in Australia, which might explain why so many stores have a minimum for card.

kondro 9y ago
Fees for PayPass/PayWave on debit cards in Australia is 7.5¢.
- ajdlinux 9y ago
  Though, in general, if you accept debit cards in Australia you need to accept that network's credit cards too. My Visa Platinum is going to be more than 7.5c for most transactions, I imagine.

grecy 9y ago

> Everyone in Australia just uses paypass/paywave contactless payment with their credit cards It's the same in Canada. Whenever I go to the US I feel like I'm going backwards in time.

incompatible 9y ago

I'm still puzzled about why lost cards aren't more of an issue with paywave. Does the bank always refund the losses? If so, what's to stop you spending money for a week and then claiming to the bank that none of the transactions were yours?

ian0 9y ago
Both of these problems occur with regular cards too (liability shift & chargeback). Generally the bank will pay for transactions if your card is stolen. They also have checks in place to reduce the scalability of fake chargebacks by customers (friendly fraud) - though its difficult to eliminate completely.

dis-sys 9y ago

Let me share a few real life use cases for you - when I go to pubs/restaurants with friends in Shanghai, one of us would be using AliPay to pay for the whole bill, then he/she would be using AliPay's "AA Pay" feature to show the QR code to get money from everyone. I guess your paywave card won't help you on that. shared bike is extremely popular these days, it costs you $10c for a one hour ride. paywave card is useless for such innovative products - the amount of each transaction is too small, plus you don't want to see a card reader on each bike as there are 10 million such bikes now. EFTPOS style devices were popular in China, the quarterly statement from Chinese central bank shows that around 6 billion debit cards and half billion credit cards were issued in total. http://www.pcac.org.cn/file/File/1490069955.pdf http://www.pcac.org.cn/file/File/1490069955.pdf