If we want to know what the end of cash will be like, we just have to look at a country that is living it: China

If you go to China and enter a trade, the most normal thing is that you cannot pay with cash. The blue and green logos of Alipay (Ant Group) and Wechat Pay (Tencent) dominate everything, and have been relegating to traditional coins and bills to an absolute background. While in the West we discuss what to do With cash And Europe considers What will happen to the digital euroIn China they are clear.

Cash, nothing. Supermarkets, coffees, taxis, or public transport are some of the many types of scenarios in which The Chinese already pay with Alipay or Wechat Pay. At any point where it is necessary to pay the blue and green logos of these applications, everything dominate, and in fact many businesses do not even have a cash register. According to Le Mondemany taxis and local businesses refuse to accept cash payments, and if they accept them, they do not even have change for buyers.

Source: Wikimedia

Only the elderly pay with tickets. Ma Dian, a Hubei fruits and vegetable seller, commented in this newspaper how the disappearance of cash payments has lived. “I only accept effective to help the elderly. Below the 80s, practically everyone has made the change. Above, it is much more difficult to adapt.” The elderly are here the greats harmed, and they must ask their relatives for help from the difficulty that they propose to make mobile payments with Alipay or Wechat Pay.

QR codes everywhere. The QR codes that we usually see in restaurants in Spain to consult the letter dominate everything in China. There the shops have static or dynamic codes (on screens such as TPV) that customers scan. If we are facing a static code, the client usually has to introduce the amount to be paid. In dynamic codes, the amount is automatically shown. The last step is to authenticate with a password, facial recognition or a fingerprint. Although initially Alipay and Wechat Pay used different codes, in some cases unified QR codes are already used for both apps and it is the client who chooses with which app works on his mobile.

Banks lose relevance. The absolute presence of these two digital payment systems have caused Chinese banks – government supplies – also have a secondary role for many clients. It is necessary to have a bank account to have it linked to these applications, but its mobile applications and services are totally overshadowed by Alipay and Wechat Pay, with which users do it practically everything in the field of payments and economic transactions. As John Engen said In American Bankerbanks are often reduced to “passive actors.”

Powerful, but at bay. Although both Alibaba and Tencent have managed to monopolize these transactions, the Chinese government It has already demonstrated that remain entities that can be punished in a wrecking way. It happened in 2020 when Ant Group He was about From going to heel. Jack Ma criticized his government at that time, which caused The cancellation of that IPO and An exile of years for one of the great figures of entrepreneurship in China.

China wants its digital renminbi. The Chinese Central Bank has been looking for a digital currency for years. Your digital renminbi or Yuan Digital You are also getting more than being an alternative to the dollar: is creating a parallel system. The objective is to have an alternative to the popularity of cryptocurrencies, but a controlled by the Chinese authorities. Although the deployment of this digital currency has been in progress for years, its prominence is very limited, and Momne both Alipay and Wechat Pay continue to dominate everything.

And tourists, what. Both platforms, which before They made it difficult To tourists, they have progressively adapted to their needs. For approximately two years both Alipay and Wechat Pay allow foreign visitors to create an account in these applications and associate it with a credit card. Last year too They increased The transaction limits, which in Alipay went from $ 1,000 to 5,000, for example.

Better with Chinese mobile number. In Wechat Pay it is even possible to access a kind of purse that they can fill in so as not to associate your Credit card to the app, and thus make small payments. It is necessary to have Internet access for these payments, and hire a SIM or a local ESIM to get a Chinese number – for example, for Validations with SMS – is especially recommended to facilitate this type of transactions.

Image | Sergio Kian

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