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"Anything is better than nothing" is exactly the point. We are talking about businesses that run on a shoestring here. Peddlers, street vendors, people who may

"Anything is better than nothing" is exactly the point. We are talking about businesses that run on a shoestring here. Peddlers, street vendors, people who may not even have a phone of their own but one of their family members does, and that's whose QR code they have printed out to accept payments. In a society where nobody carries cash any more, the best you can hope for as a bottom-rung vendor is that your customers aren't desperate enough to try cheat you out of a few kuai. At the next level up, of course, vendors will have their own phone so they can check their notifications to make sure that a payment went through. And that is a big step forward for vendors in developing countries - there's no risk of receiving counterfeit currency with electronic transactions.

smachiz 6y ago
Unfortunately the bottom rung can least afford the fraud. If the currency is good enough to fool a street vendor, it’s probably good enough to spend with their suppliers. Not like they’re sticking it in a bank. I suspect those street vendors are also not accepting bills so large they’re worth counterfeiting. Chargeback fraud of course being more likely with credit card payments - but again, unlikely for small vendor transactions. It’s not worth it for anyone. The argument that people don’t carry cash anymore is certainly real enough - and the beggars/window washer at a red light types are the most impacted rather than real merchants.