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by gruez 2947 days ago
>Western bankers and credit-card executives who travel to China keep returning with the same anxiety: Payments can happen cheaply and easily without them.

but there are plenty of "bank -> wallet -> merchant" services in US as well. most notably paypal: you deposit money to your paypal wallet, and spend that money at various online merchants, no credit cards involved.
2 comments
tluyben2 2947 days ago
The anxiety probably stems from the scale of wechat pay; you can pay basically everywhere with it now. Even in places that do not officially accept it, the store clerk will usually just accept on his private phone and put money in the till for you.
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gruez 2947 days ago
how's that any different than payment processors like square, which allows just anyone with a cellphone onto their platform?

>the store clerk will usually just accept on his private phone and put money in the till for you

is that really a thing people do? the risk-reward ratio is all off. you take on the risk of possibly getting a chargeback (maybe the phone/account was stolen), in exchange for... nothing? it's not like the cashier is getting paid commissions.

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em500 2947 days ago
Alipay and WeChat pay don't do chargeback, so where's the risk to the clerk? They're mainly replacing cash / direct debit, which don't provide chargeback either.
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tluyben2 2947 days ago
Slightly offtopic; how easy is it to do chargebacks over there as it sounds trivially easy? On my dutch and spanish creditcards I have tried chargebacks but it is a royal pain in the ass; writing letters (in the actual post, not digitally) and providing proof for obvious things like hotel double charge.
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frockington 2947 days ago
As an American my experience has been clicking on a button on my account statement that says "Report suspicious" and then getting a refund in two days
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em500 2947 days ago
In China you can spend Alipay/WeChat at offline as well as online merchants. And not just larger merchants but also at micro-businesses like mobile food stalls and hole in the wall eateries. Because both the equipment and fees for the merchant are much cheaper than those required for traditional credit/debit card processing.
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Taniwha 2947 days ago
Exactly - WeChat is used for everything - homeless people on the street have WeChat QR codes - that gives you an idea how cheap that process is.

Here in NZ I pay in cash (I kind of like the idea of an anonymous payment system) but these days younger cashiers often trigger ATM payment while I'm standing there holding cash and have to reach around and cancel it on the ATM terminal - it's the same in China but more so

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marnett 2947 days ago
cash is not perfectly anonymous. cash taken out of an ATM has tracking numbers assigned to you.
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