Text: Chu Jing
If a man who had lived abroad for many years was now returning home, he would be surprised, because now Chinese seemed to rarely use paper money to pay. According to the 2021 global payment report released by FIS World Payment, a well-known foreign financial technology company, mobile payment accounts for up to 50% of all payment methods in China.
Not only that, according to the latest data released by CNNIC, the number of online payment users in the mainland has reached 872 million, accounting for 86.3% of the total number of netizens. It can be said that because shopping, transportation, transfer and remittance, rent gas payment and many other things only need a mobile phone to do, so mobile payment has greatly changed people's way of life.
At present, in addition to some elderly people who will not use it, almost all online and offline people are paying through mobile payment, and even have introduced faster fingerprint payment and face brush payment. Forgot to bring cash when you go out, so you don't have to worry about not being able to pay it. The advent of the era of intelligent and fast payment provides people with a great sense of superiority, so what are the main aspects of smart payment?
First, put an end to counterfeit money, no need to find change. Counterfeit money can be said to be a very disgusting point in daily transactions. Mobile payment can perfectly eliminate counterfeit money, and there is no need to find change in the cashier process, which greatly saves the time of buyers and sellers.
Second, mobile payment reduces the risk of carrying cash. Before the advent of mobile payments, we often carried large amounts of cash for commodity transactions. With the popularity of mobile payment, we only need a bank card or a mobile phone to trade goods.
Third, it is closely related to personal budgets. One of the biggest features of mobile payments is that there is a certain degree of separation between you and your money, so it seems that there is less guilt when spending money. However, to avoid overconsumption, you can also use some money-saving software to help you plan your finances. There are tons of apps available to track expenses, and it's easy to see how a purchase would better fit your budget to avoid overruns.
Mobile payment has also made a great contribution to public health, the recent two years of covid-19 prevailed, and the use of mobile payment can greatly reduce direct contact between people and largely avoid the possibility of infection. At present, mobile payment has involved many fields, such as purchasing tickets when traveling, showing electronic medical insurance cards when seeing a doctor, etc.
The two giants of mobile payments
Nowadays, mobile payment is becoming the mainstream payment method. The two giants in this field, WeChat and Alipay, are attracting more and more attention.
The background of Alipay is Alibaba, and the background of WeChat is Tencent. But if we compare the two, we will find that there will be more groups of people who use Alipay to pay than WeChat.
In addition to the payment function, Alipay can also bring various benefits to people's lives. For example, you can buy train tickets or air tickets, check social insurance, Alipay and financial services, etc., so this platform provides more functions than we think.
Originally, WeChat was just a communication app, and everyone just chatted on it. The payment feature was only introduced in 2014. About 10 years later than the emergence of Alipay, the earliest typing chat tool can be regarded as SMS, then Fetion, and finally WeChat, which means that WeChat only appeared as a chat software.
Although it entered the market relatively late, due to its large user base, it quickly occupied a large part of the market in the mobile payment field. Now, according to Tencent's third-quarter financial report, WeChat's active accounts have reached 1.26 billion. Since WeChat Pay is bound to WeChat, in other words, WeChat Pay has 1.26 billion users.
Then everyone will be more curious, since mobile payment is the first to be promoted by Alipay, why did it lose to WeChat? What is the reason behind it? And especially in some small shops on the street, there are more people who pay with WeChat than with Alipay, why is this? Even Ma Yun was puzzled. But in fact, the reason is very simple, after analysis, mainly including the following aspects.
First, users have an advantage. WeChat is not only a payment software, but also a social software. The number of WeChat users is higher than Alipay, and the activity penetration rate of WeChat is also higher than that of Alipay. The active penetration rate of WeChat is 86.9%, and Alipay is 56.9%.
Secondly, the interface of WeChat is more concise. With the exception of social and payment features, other applets don't usually appear on the home page. But alipay will have a lot of accompanying features as soon as it is opened. For example, Yu'e Bao and Ant Forest, young people are still familiar with the payment function, but for some middle-aged and elderly people, WeChat's payment function is indeed easier to find.
Third, WeChat and Alipay define themselves differently. When Ma Yun developed Alipay, he mainly wanted to solve the payment problem of Taobao, so the security of Alipay was very high, which was also the first thing we thought of when we shoped online was Alipay instead of WeChat, and later Alipay successively developed Balance Bao, Huabei, Borrowing and so on, although it was well received by the masses. But in the final analysis, these software still belong to the type of financial management software, and Alipay is mainly defined as a wealth management APP in the eyes of most people.
There was a very interesting passage on the Internet before, which basically meant that mobile phones have become very important, and we have been inseparable from it. But I would like to say that now the merchant's payment mechanism has allowed face scanning payment, even if you go out shopping and forget to bring a mobile phone, face scanning payment is also very convenient, and can also solve a temporary dilemma.
I have to admit that Alibaba still faces many difficulties at present, but both platforms have outstanding strengths. At present, there is no way to judge who will win over the other side, they all have their own advantages. So for everyone, which payment method do you prefer to use in your life now?