Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Cui Can and Sun Tao — China is becoming a cashless society


Smartphones.
But China's cashless society may be different from the Western countries where payments are often made with credit cards. Cashless payment in China mostly refers to digital transactions using mobile apps such as Alipay and WeChat, which are run by China's tech giants.… 
As he receives customers at the register, 7-Eleven clerk Zhang said instead of asking them "cash or card," he now asks "Alipay or WeChat." 
Convenience for consumers and efficiency for distributors.

But there are security concerns, too
Not everyone is entirely at ease with China rapidly becoming a cashless society. As mobile payment penetration has reached 64.7 percent in 2016, according to Bank of China, security is becoming one of the top concerns for skeptics of the trend.
"I'm a little worried about the security of mobile payments," said 16-year-old Cao selling lotus seeds on a pedestrian overpass in Chaoyang District. Although there is a QR code in front of her stall, she prefers to take cash. "It seems to me that a cashless society would not be quite safe, since there may be hackers who can steal my money stored on an Alipay account."
Also stored by any online payment service is its consumers' private information, including name, phone number and ID number. Preventing identity theft could also be a challenge for the impending cashless society in China.

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