Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Cashless trend takes hold in China
Only in a few years, originally just a mobile phone turned into a ubiquitous multifunctional gadget that offers texting, messaging, tweeting, photos and videos, games, music, and browsing. Nowadays, the handy device is taking a place for cash, credit cards, and prepaid cards.
It’s been about a decade since the smartphone appeared on the market. China alone, there are over 600 million smartphone users and the number is rapidly increasing. Accordingly, numbers of new convenience have been invented and created for this personal, mobile device.
Now, Alipay by Alibaba and WeChat by Tencent are the two dominant platforms of mobile payment in China. A young lady says she can hardly recall when she paid for something in cash last time. This doesn’t sound so strange in today’s smartphonized society. But this emerging and expanding trend hasn’t just stopped there. A 67-year old woman says, "Gone are the days when I had to search all my pockets for a coin," when she shops in a nearby wet market to buy daily groceries near her home. In China these days, instead of being asked cash or card for payment, you are more likely to be asked, “WeChat or Alipay?”
It seems that countries waiting for economic development will also follow the suit because there are hardly any other convenient payment options available there.
Enjoy reading and thinking what other new platforms could emerge from China.
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