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As Chinese, I would say, the scale and speed of China getting rid of cash is truly impressive and makes me proud, but, in US, with credit card and Apple/Android
by tanilama 9y ago
As Chinese, I would say, the scale and speed of China getting rid of cash is truly impressive and makes me proud, but, in US, with credit card and Apple/Android Pay, I am pretty much cashless as well. For me, the achievement of mobile payment is social-economical, that is more about how companies could persuade customers to adapt a new way of doing something than inventing some ground-breaking technology.
In case of China, put it into another perspective. Chinese banks have long been state-owned and very ineffective. Credit cards are incredibly difficult to apply, and cumbersome to use after you get it because the banks refuse to pay you back in case of frauds. This is why WechatPay/Alipay could be so successful:
1.There is no existing dominating technologies.
2.It mitigate the fraud problem that it is harder to stole/clone your card.
3.The onboarding process is really easy.
All in all, I think mobile payment takes off in China is pretty logical, while in other countries, like Japan/South Korea, it is not common at all, even though they are close to China culturally and their economies are considered to be more advanced than China's. This is a classic example of second mover advantage, that China could enjoy this great leap forward, only because it is not advanced enough before so doesn't have all the legacy to carry along.
However, I agree with you that US needs to ditch the illusion, that it is still the norm of innovation and others should follow. The world is getting diverse once again after the cold war, more and more innovations will happen elsewhere, like in East Asia or India. Time to let go of that useless ignorance and set down to truly listen and, learn.
- lostboys67 9y agoWhy are you "proud" of removing cash going fully digital allows governments to implement negative interest rates ie steal your monney
- tanilama 9y agoBecause it speaks loud that Chinese technologists are using technology to make everyone's life better. And none of your comment actually happened.
- thehardsphere 9y agoActually, negative interest rate policies have been implemented quite a few times in Europe. The Swiss did in the early 70's, Sweden and Denmark both did for a while during the recession, and the ECB did it in 2014 for bank deposits. So yes, it actually can happen. But it doesn't require digital cash.
- thehardsphere 9y agoThey can implement negative interest rates with paper money also.
- lostboys67 9y agoyes but if you hold cash they don't come and take 1% out of your wallet
- thehardsphere 9y agoThey 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.
- lostboys67 9y agoNot the same one of the Baltic countries has openly speculated about taking money directly from peoples bank accounts.
- thehardsphere 9y agoAhh 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.
- phkahler 9y agoInflation affects all kinds of money - including that sitting in a bank account. All forms of electronic payment include rent paid to some company and that's above and beyond currency devaluation.
- dis-sys 9y agoChinese Yuan that stays in your online payment account is usually managed by some cash funds, e.g. Yuebao from Alipay currently manages over $200 billion and it is returning 4.1% pa. In case you are arguing that the <1% fee should be considered as a part of the overall "interest" rate, well, that small fee does bring you the real convenience.
- Veratyr 9y ago> but, in US, with credit card and Apple/Android Pay, I am pretty much cashless as well The thing is though is that the US has a habit of getting these things decades after they're introduced. The US has just started EMV rollouts and it's still the only country that depends on signatures. Most of the developed world has had EMV with a PIN for what, 15 years now? Contactless payments have been widespread in Australia (home) for at least 5 years and by "widespread", I don't mean a few particular retailers support them, I mean everything from the independent coffee or fish and chip shop down the street to every major supermarket chain, cinema, Starbucks and McDonald's. The US is just barely keeping itself 5-10 years behind the rest of the world.