One of my biggest issues in travelling to china is that…
- My credit cards don’t work anywhere but a major chain hotel
- I have to carry cash, and most likely go to an ATM in china to get money
Contrast that to the way that my colleague in china makes payment! WeChat!
But isn’t that a chat application. WeChat has now become more or less the only way to pay online. If he goes to a website and wants to pay for something, the website will throw up a QR code, he will take out the phone and scan that QR code and that’s it the payment is done.
Every try to do that when buying something in the US?
So what is exciting about this…
- The web site had no clue about who you are
- By showing you a barcode it gave a token that only you could see
- By using your phone camera you automatically used a two factor authentication (without knowing you did)
- The payment is made and the vendor has their money
Would I use such a system in US? There isn’t one common payment mechanism for it. PayPal is about the only one that is coming up slowly, and I have only started using it now and that does not have the versatility of what WeChat can do.
I somehow think that pay by bitcoin will again happen first with WeChat.
Samyeer Metrani 