No. 1 hot search! Foreigners have money in China and it is difficult to spend, or do they have money and do not spend it?

Author | Cat brother

Source | Big Cat Finance Pro

Having money to spend?

Recently, at the National Standing Committee meeting presided over by the Prime Minister, an opinion was adopted, which mainly aims to optimize payment services and improve the convenience of payment, that is, for the elderly and foreign people to China, a variety of payment methods should be parallel, mobile payment, bank cards and cash should be parallel.

Of course, it is mainly the foreign personnel who come to China who have a relatively high voice.

In developed countries such as Europe and the United States, the penetration rate of mobile payment is relatively low, and now it is still accustomed to cash payment and card payment, to China, I found that everyone is scanning the code to pay, I can only hold a bank card, nowhere to swipe, because the POS machine that can swipe the foreign card, there are fewer and fewer, some places have not heard of it at all, and the small stall vendor, you want a pos machine with him, it is definitely difficult for them.

Therefore, many foreigners complain on Chinese social platforms and it is too difficult to consume in China.

A while ago, a South Korean female doctor spoke fluent Chinese about the payment difficulties she encountered in China and the difficulty of taking a taxi, especially saying that electronic payment needs to be improved.

Is there a real dilemma? Yes.

For example, many APPs in China require Chinese mobile phone number registration, but China's mobile phone number is a real-name system, especially in recent years, when electronic fraud is rampant, the control of this aspect is more strict, and there is no "tourist card" that some countries will launch.

If you want to apply for a bank card in China, it is also more difficult.

According to the customer service of Bank of China, foreigners who want to apply for a bank card need valid documents, in addition to passports, they also need residence permits, "five-star cards" and other documents, that is, if you want to apply for a local bank card, you need at least a long-term visa, if you only hold a short-term visa such as tourism, it is difficult.

Is this a deliberate attempt by China to create difficulties for them?

And, to some extent, the difficulties are reciprocal.

For example, the problem of mobile phone cards, many countries do buy them casually, but fraudulent calls in the name of the embassy also often occur; as for bank cards, it is also difficult for Chinese short-term visa holders to apply for bank cards.

It's understandable to talk about difficulties, but is it really that difficult?

If the Korean doctor registers Alipay with his Korean mobile phone number, he will find that there are no cumbersome functions for foreigners, but there should be a lot of them, not only can they bind the credit and debit cards of the six major card organizations, but also use online taxi software to realize the taxi service.

In addition, South Korea's Kookmin Bank can actually issue UnionPay cards, and no matter how bad it is, the branches of China's major state-owned banks in South Korea can also issue UnionPay cards.

With a little homework, it's not that hard to solve.

On the other hand, foreigners complain about the difficulty of payment, and at the same time refuse to accept the payment of scanning codes, is it really a matter of pure habit?

In fact, there has always been a debate on the Internet, that is, who is advanced in the two ways of scanning codes and NFC Pay, and the original technical and commercial debate has become an ideological dispute.

Many overseas IP netizens classify code scanning as "Chinese-style", and then they have their own resistance.

If you really want to swipe your card, you have to settle the economic account.

In order to attract Chinese tourists, China's neighboring countries have basically accepted Alipay, WeChat Pay, UnionPay and other Chinese-style payment methods, scanning codes, swiping cards, popular areas can be "no different from China", and more avant-garde places, even Bitcoin payment.

It is so difficult for foreigners to swipe a card, in essence, because it is not cost-effective.

For example, if you use a credit card abroad, there will be a handling fee from the card association, and many merchants indicate that the money needs to be paid by yourself, ranging from 1.5% to 3%, and even government departments (such as the immigration bureau) need to pay for it.

However, the domestic scanning code payment fee can be calculated in a few thousandths or even a few thousandths, and the merchant can completely digest this part of the fee independently.

Can't the ratio of 1.5%-3% be digested? It is also possible that when the volume is large enough, the merchant can bear this part of the cost, after all, you see, many overseas shopping malls have active discounts specifically for UnionPay cards, and the 5% discount is the basic price, as long as you buy, these are not a problem.

This is the real treatment of the financier.

Comparable data show that in 2019, the total number of inbound tourists was 145 million, and the national inbound tourism revenue was 77.1 billion US dollars, accounting for 0.5% of GDP, that is, the average consumption per person was 532 US dollars, about 3,700 yuan, while the per capita consumption of Chinese tourists in 2019 was 14,000 yuan.

Foreigners want to become the financiers in the Chinese market through consumption, and the poor consumption power is not a star and a half.

Of course, now China has resumed many of its previous visa-free policies, such as the 72-hour/144-hour transit visa exemption in many port cities, the visa-free entry to Hainan Island, the unilateral visa-free visa exemption granted to France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Ireland in December last year, and the visa exemption with Thailand and Singapore this year.

The expansion of the circle of friends means that people from these countries can come to China, of course, they still have to consume.

Now, the policy is also in place, and there are no technical obstacles, and the number of inbound tourists this year may also reach a new peak, so that is to say, it is still possible to use purchasing power to force our payment methods to "regress".