WeChat Pay, Alipay and other Chinese Bank Pay

[dan1984]

What if Jiaying opens up a new bank account and only puts a small amount of money in it? This way if the account should somehow be comprised, it is not really a large amount of money.....I assume that's why she doesn't want to tie her bank account to her Wechat. Although, I've never heard of any friends who have had this type of problem.

 

Wechat really is soooooooo convenient. 9 times out of 10 I don't even leave home with my wallet, and that 1/10 times is if I'm feeling lazy and I don't want to take my subway/metro card out of the wallet and stick it in my pocket, and instead just put the whole wallet in.

[Randy W]

What if Jiaying opens up a new bank account and only puts a small amount of money in it? This way if the account should somehow be comprised, it is not really a large amount of money.....I assume that's why she doesn't want to tie her bank account to her Wechat. Although, I've never heard of any friends who have had this type of problem.

 

Wechat really is soooooooo convenient. 9 times out of 10 I don't even leave home with my wallet, and that 1/10 times is if I'm feeling lazy and I don't want to take my subway/metro card out of the wallet and stick it in my pocket, and instead just put the whole wallet in.

 

 

No - she doesn't want to link it to a bank account. That's her choice. But come to think of it, I'm not sure how she gets money into her account other than through me. But that's fairly convenient to just hand me the cash. Until my wallet gets over-stuffed.

 

We solved that temporarily the other day when I renewed our internet and cable for two years with some of that cash - 2 years for $200USD.

 

I don't mind the risk, since the merchant doesn't have access to your bank information, but yes, I'll often have WAY more than I really care to leave exposed if someone were to hack in.

[Randy W]

Switching from an Africa-centric (from NASA) picture to a China-centric picture . . .

 

on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChinaPic/photos/a.558235270968533.1073741830.553929144732479/1335579976567388/?type=3&theater

 

China Pictorial

Page Liked · 15 hrs ·

The link in the quote box here goes to a story about coal ??!?

The actual link is http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0927/c90000-9274294.html

Behind WeChat’s new loading photo is a story of China’s self-reliance in space technology

China’s popular mobile messaging app WeChat got a new loading page on Sept. 25, a satellite photo of the Earth showing Chinese territory. The photo was taken by the Fengyun-4A satellite, the first of China’s second-generation geostationary orbiting weather satellites. The previous photo was taken by a US satellite.
The move was aimed at commemorating the operation of the Fengyun-4A satellite, which allows China to become a leader in developing geostationary orbiting weather satellites.#19thCPC
Read more:
http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0921/c90000-9272069.html

 

Edited September 30, 2017 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Weixin vs. Octopus in Hong Kong

 

 

Published on Nov 27, 2017

Hong Kong’s MTR commuters will be able to use their mobile phones to make payments at two stations as part of a trial programme.

 

 

[dnoblett]

When over in Toronto last week I spotted merchants n Chinatown and Markham accepting WeChat pay as well as AliPay.

[Randy W]

from the Shanghaiist - I don't think this will work for the Google Play version

 

You can now tie foreign credit cards to your WeChat Pay account!

Just so long as you downloaded WeChat in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, or Taiwan

 

However, the catch is that this will only work for users who downloaded WeChat in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao, or Taiwan. If you have that version of the app, then you’ll be able to link up credit cards — not debit cards — from MasterCard, Visa, and JCB to your WeChat Pay account.

 

 

[dnoblett]

I saw that one yesterday posted by The Beijinger...

 

http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2018/01/24/wechat-pay-now-allows-users-bind-overseas-credit-cards

[dnoblett]

On our latest trip over the boarder to Toronto Ontario Canada I noticed several merchants in China Town and in Markham accepting WeChat Pay...

 

https://www.chinatravelnews.com/article/114840

[Stone]

Are there many people here who are also using Android Pay or Apple Pay?

 

Have you thought about how you can quickly shut off Wechat Pay, Alipay, Android Pay and Apple Pay if you accidentally lose your phone? I heard iphone and Apple Pay should have strong security feature built in.

[Greg.D.]

I had Apple Pay set up for a while. It uses the EFI chip to talk to a receiver, so (for me) no simpler than using my CC.

 

Apple's OS could be more secure by virtue of allowing only fairly carefully screened app's and far less malware (don't know of any offhand).

 

If you lose lose your phone you can send a command to wipe it. I just tested it from my Linux laptop browser and, before I could log into iCloud account, it sent a code to my iPhone that I had to retrieve and put into the browser page. Then it showed me all my devices. Gave me the option to wipe it or turn on location tracking.

 

So, not much use if you have lost your iPhone and can't get the second factor numeric code off the screen. If I go back to the same browser I previously tried this from the cookie will remember the machine and browser and I won't need to retrieve a code sent to the lost device.

 

there are some third party pay services (for android and Apple) that may also read the QR code like wechat, making payment available to anybody who can print their qr code.

[Randy W]

WeChat requires a 6 digit PIN, except for some small transactions from your WeChat wallet.

 

My phone is "unlocked" simply by opening the case - I can't think of anything on it that I'd want to protect that DOESN'T require PIN or password entry.

[dnoblett]

Are there many people here who are also using Android Pay or Apple Pay?

 

Have you thought about how you can quickly shut off Wechat Pay, Alipay, Android Pay and Apple Pay if you accidentally lose your phone? I heard iphone and Apple Pay should have strong security feature built in.

Apple pay REQUIRES the use of the fingerprint reader for it to actually if you lose the phone whoever has it would not have your fingerprint to make it work.

[Randy W]

from Bloomberg - an interesting but perhaps overly technical article

Why China’s Payment Apps Give U.S. Bankers Nightmares

 

Entranced by their phones, they hardly made way for the banker. The teens were messaging, shopping and sending money back and forth, all without cash. Instead, they were using Alipay and WeChat.

The scary thing for the American: Banks never got a cut.

 

The future of consumer payments may not be designed in New York or London but in China. There, money flows mainly through a pair of digital ecosystems that blend social media, commerce and banking—all run by two of the world’s most valuable companies. That contrasts with the U.S., where numerous firms feast on fees from handling and processing payments. Western bankers and credit-card executives who travel to China keep returning with the same anxiety: Payments can happen cheaply and easily without them.

. . .

The nightmare for the U.S. financial industry is that a technology company—whether from China or a homegrown juggernaut such as Amazon.com Inc. or Facebook Inc.—replicates the success of Alipay and WeChat in America. The stakes are enormous, potentially carving away billions of dollars in annual revenue from major banks and other firms. What follows is a breakdown of what that could look like—theoretically—using the explosive growth as China’s apps as a rough guide.

Perhaps the clearest opportunity lies in siphoning off some of the fees that U.S. merchants pay to accept cards and mobile payments—about $90 billion a year, according to the Nilson Report, an industry newsletter. That money gets parceled out to card networks such as Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., payment processors and banks, which pocket the largest share.

 

[Randy W]

Paying for grapes WITH CASH ?? in the SCMP

 

A cashless supermarket, a bunch of grapes and the growing digital divide in China’s economy

An elderly man tries to use cash to buy some fruit, reigniting discussion over those left behind in the rush to online payments

 

 

“I’ll leave if you don’t take the cash,” Xie said in the clip.

“Well, leave if you can,” the cashier replied.

Xie took the grapes and approached the door but was stopped by security guards.

“I know it’s not right to leave without paying,” Xie said. “But I have real yuan in my hands. It’s not fake money. Why are you humiliating this old man for not knowing how to use WeChat?”

A security guard later helped Xie process the payment with cash, the report said.

 

 

[Randy W]

Alipay for foreign visitors - from the SCMP

 

 

Alipay launches international e-wallet, giving foreigners access to mobile payment platform in first for China

• Ant Financial unveils a 90-day ‘tour pass’ programme for short-term visitors to pay for online purchases through its Alipay platform
• China received 30.5m international tourists in 2018 who spent US$73.1 billion from lodging to shopping and food, Ant Financial says

Under the programme called ‘Tour Pass’, the company will introduce an international version of its Alipay app for download and registration using their international phone numbers. The app will enable visitors to pay for their transactions using a 90-day prepaid card from the Bank of Shanghai.

 

. . .

 

Ant Financial said the 90-day prepaid card can be reloaded using their international debit or credit cards. The minimum top-up is 100 yuan, with the balance capped at 2,000 yuan. Users can top up “multiple times” and Alipay has set an undisclosed but “reasonable” ceiling, it said.