Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other Nations

Re:Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other ... by njepa on Thursday May 16, 2019 @05:55AM (#19927571)

It isn't the same thing by any means, and doesn't really offer much over cards other than a slight improvement in convenience. Mobile payments in China are essentially peer-to-peer and universal. The closest equivalent is probably something like MobilePay or Swish, but that isn't as good or as widespread.

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Re:Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other ... by teknologist on Friday May 17, 2019 @04:46AM (#19937574)

Peer-to-peer in the same way that PayPal is peer-to-peer. There's still a central entity somewhere holding all the money and data.

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Re:Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other ... by njepa on Friday May 17, 2019 @06:11AM (#19938039)

Sure, but cards are even more centralized.

The "feature" of WeChat is that it can be used for almost anything. It is a cash successor more so that a card alternative. Anyone can print, display or scan a QR code. Doesn't matter if it is a store, a friend or a random person. Doesn't matter if it is in the physical world, on a website or in a chat. And it is easy to do. And almost everyone uses it.

Contactless cards only matches WeChat in the same way something like Apple Pay does.

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Re:Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other ... by teknologist on Saturday May 18, 2019 @01:50AM (#19945892)

I am not seeing the value in being able to print QR codes unless your business is selling fruit on the street (to be fair, a lot of businesses in China are just this).

The more secure analogy comparable in price would be solutions like Square and PayPal Here. Smartphones are ubiquitous.

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