Cashless Living In China

Recently I have tried to go cashless for some time, for no particular reasons at all. Well maybe it was because I was on a business trip and carrying a bulging wallet from place to place wasn't exactly a safe practice. I can only keep my eye on certain amount of things, like my plane ticket, my phone, and my bag and that's about all. I can't just go around still thinking about that wallet in some pocket of mine. So I buried my wallet somewhere in my bag. From that day on for about a month I never actually had more than 50 Yuan in my pocket. And I can say I have had no problem at all living, both on the road and at home.

This shouldn't be a surprise to most of the people around me through. Most people living in the city like I do, have at least an IM app called Wechat installed on their phone. Some shops or supermarkets or KFC also support an app called Alipay.

In Wechat, people can bind one or several bank cards to their account. When paying someone or some shop all people have to do is to open Wechat and scan a QR code the receipt is showing, you just have to type several digits and the transaction is complete. The money would go from the bank card to the recipient's Wechat account. And the transaction goes instantly.  Because almost everyone nowadays has a Wechat account, and has Wechat app installed on their phone, paying with Wechat is really the most common way to live cashlessly. I have used Wechat to pay taxi, food, supermarkets and so on. I think I can do just about anything with Wechat.

Alipay is similar but not all the same. Alipay is not a IM app, it is solely used as a payment app for Taobao, which is the largest online shopping platform in China, maybe in the world. Users of this shopping platform don't need to go anywhere. Anything that a human would need I dare say he or she can buy from Taobao. At first Alipay was just a payment service for Taobao, after a while, Alipay started to grow in functions, like buying plane tickets, paying mobile phone bills, utility bills and so on. Most major supermarkets and shops support paying with Alipay. Personally I have used Alipay for my phone bills utility bills and even steam games.

Now I have about 10 Yuan in my wallet and it has been like this for over 10 days. I don't really feel the need to withdraw any cash from my bank.

There are concerns as well. I know these private companies would very much love to know where and when I pay for what. These kinds of information are priceless and they would love to pay a little bit just to gather that info. And the state is looking into using these info for other purposes that I am not so comfortable with. Cash as a payment method is anonymous. And there is no other way more anonymous than using cash. I understand them all. But, living like this is really fantastic and futuristic as well. I can't just live under a stone. Can I?