On the basis of the coexistence of multiple payments, it is also necessary to strengthen the compatibility of existing mobile payments for foreigners.
At the T3 terminal of the Capital Airport, many stores have set up a sign at the checkout with the accepted payment method. Photo by Beijing News reporter Jiang Fan.
Text|Shin Hai Guang.
Is it difficult for foreigners to spend money in China? According to China News Weekly, David and his colleagues, a Canadian living in China, found that they could only spend money by swiping cards at hotels, and there was no place to swipe cards after leaving the hotel.
On February 23, Premier Li Qiang presided over an executive meeting to review and approve the "Opinions on Further Optimizing Payment Services and Improving Payment Convenience". The opinions emphasize that it is necessary to focus on the inconvenience of payment for the elderly, foreign personnel and other groups, strengthen coordination and cooperation, increase necessary resource investment, take multiple measures to break through service blockages, and promote the parallel development and complementarity of mobile payment, bank cards, cash and other payment methods.
Once upon a time, people were widely concerned about how to break down barriers to the promotion of mobile payment in the "stubborn resistance" of traditional payment, but today the problem is how to properly return to traditional methods such as cash and bank card payment because mobile payment is too powerful. Of course, this is a kind of "negation of negation" type of progress, and it is also a necessity for a harmonious society.
In recent years, as mobile payments have taken the world by storm, they have also created some new digital divides. This gap is reflected between the young and the elderly, as well as between Chinese and foreign consumer groups.
With the continuous expansion of China's visa-free "circle of friends" and the recovery of cross-border tourism after the epidemic, the number of foreigners traveling to China is increasing, which also makes the problem of "foreigners have money in China and it is difficult to spend" to become increasingly prominent. China's mobile payment is too developed, while many foreign countries and regions still use credit cards and cash as the main forms of payment, and different payment habits have caused payment problems for foreigners entering the country.
To solve the new payment problem, we should start from both the internal and external aspects of mobile payment. On the one hand, it is to make efforts in addition to mobile payment, appropriately return to cash and bank card payment, and promote the parallel development and complementarity of mobile payment, bank card, cash and other payment methods.
This work is actually not simple, because intelligence means efficiency, efficiency means profit, and many merchants are not active in using cash. "Refusing to accept RMB cash is an illegal act" as a common sense should be widely popularized and supplemented by relevant penalties. In the use of bank cards, the enthusiasm of merchants can be stimulated through the appropriate adjustment of the acquiring rate.
On the other hand, it is through technological innovation and policy innovation to strengthen the "externalization" of mobile payment itself. In 2022, the People's Bank of China, together with relevant departments, formulated a solution of "large-value card swiping, small-value QR code scanning, and cash pocketing", and on this basis, the compatibility of existing mobile payments for foreigners will be strengthened. This includes accelerating technological innovation and international cooperation in the field of financial services, as well as appropriately relaxing the review of identity authentication from the policy perspective.
Finally, it is important to point out that although there needs to be a certain return to payment methods, this does not mean that the adoption of mobile payments has stagnated. On the contrary, the two need to be promoted in parallel, not only can we not be proud of the new payment methods to completely replace the old payment methods, but also should note that there are still a large number of mobile payment blind spots in the whole society that need to be cleared.
For example, a small number of departments still insist on only accepting cash and bank cards. This is also contrary to the goal of creating a diversified payment system, and it needs to be taken seriously.
Written by Xin Haiguang (**person).
Edited by Xu Qiuying.
Proofreading by Yang Xuli.