![]() Buckley said that working with the ecosystems has been good for business, generating new customers and allowing Citi to cut itsīranch count to about 25 from 45 a few years ago. It’s a stimulating environment for bankers with the technology chops and resources to participate. When Lu is done, she will repeat the process and leave the locked bike waiting on a sidewalk for “It makes things so easy,” Lu said as she pointed her iPhone’s camera at a rental bike’s QR code to unlock it. Suzie Lu, a 20-year-old student at Yunnan University, said she started using WeChat Pay last year, and is hoping Kunming turns into full-out QR-code territory quickly. But a growing number of storefronts have the codes, and individuals -Įspecially the younger ones - are embracing them. ![]() In Kunming, a fast-growing southwestern city, QR codes aren’t yet as omnipresent as they are in the coastal cities. Walk the bustling streets and alleys of Shenzhen, a large southern technology hub, and merchant QR codes are ubiquitous - posted on food stalls, fruit stands, convenience stores, gas stations and more.Īnd there’s still plenty of room for growth. “It’s becoming a truly mobile, cashless society.” With me, and have no need for cash,” he said. James Chang, a Beijing-based financial services leader with PwC, pays for everything from coffee to haircuts with his phone. Usage is approaching those levels in Shanghai and other big cities. In Hangzhou, Alibaba’s headquarters city, an estimated 90% of all consumer transactions are mobile. So easy, it’s quickly become part of daily life. “They can just printĪ QR code and stick it on the counter. “One of the big keys driving adoption is that there’s a no-cost way to get merchants on-boarded,” said Shiv Putcha, principal analyst with Mandala Insights, another Mumbai research firm. But it’s cheaper for merchants, who don’t have to buy a piece of technology Merchants that lack a point-of-sale device can simply post a piece of paper with their QR code near the register for customers to point their phones’ cameras at and execute payments in reverse.Ī system built on QR codes might not be as secure as the near-field communication technology used by ApplePay and other apps in the U.S. The process takes seconds, moving customers along so quickly that anyone using cash gets eye-rolls To the individual and linked to his or her mobile wallet, appears for the merchant to scan.Ī growing number of retailers, including McDonald's and Starbucks, have self-scanning devices near the cash register to read QR codes. Instead, they simply press the “pay” button on the ecosystem’s main app and a QR code, unique With Alipay and WeChat Pay, users don’t need to sign into a stand-alone bank or payments app when transacting. “Our challenge is to understand and integrate financial services into them,” he said. He’s been particularly interested in the linkages between loyalty and payments, and how customers spend their time on the app. “While WeChat, at its core, is very specific to the local market, we think we’re going to be seeing more customers spending time in these kinds of ecosystems,” said Gavin Michael, head of technology for Citi’s The fast growth and meshing of payments with ecosystems has made China a lab of sorts for banks eager to understand the threats and opportunities of a world dominated by mobile payments.Ĭiti’s consumer banking team in New York, which has long had a “mobile-first” strategy, is studying Chinese usage patterns, behaviors and analytic data in anticipation of similar ecosystems emerging in other markets. Not necessary to install or sign onto separate apps for each function.Īlipay, which touts itself as a “global lifestyle super-app,” has similar functionality. WeChat users can schedule doctor appointments, order food, hail rides and much more, all through "mini-apps" that reside on the core app. They benefit enormously from their association with WeChat and Alibaba, which have blossomed into full-blown digital “ecosystems” -Īlways-on hubs for managing the minutiae of daily life.Ī key feature of the ecosystems is the “app-within-an-app” concept. The two services have flourished by making mobile payments cheap and easy to use. (China UnionPay, the nation’s dominant card network, is a distant third in mobile market share.) It’s as if Amazon and Facebook were the major conduits for payments. WeChat, the nation’s must-have messaging and social-media app with more than 1 billion users. More than 90% of Chinese mobile payments run through Alipay and WeChat Pay, rival platforms backed by China’s two largest internet conglomerates - Alibaba, essentially the Amazon of China, and Tencent Holdings, owner of
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