A Change in Pay.docVIP

A Change in Pay 　　Wang Dawei， a 31-year-old civil servant living in Beijing， manages to live a wallet-less life in the capital， thanks to online mobile payment apps on his smartphone. 　　“I use mobile apps to solve almost all payment demands in my life. I don’t need to go to banks anymore， and my bank cards have been sitting idle at home for a long time. I can get a taxi by using taxi-hailing apps and pay the driver with my phone， shop online and pay for the product on my phone， pay my electricity bills and transfer money to other parties，” Wang told Beijing Review. “Anything you can think of can be accomplished on the phone.” 　　Previously， in China， one survived with cash in hand. Later， bank cards became the new cash. Now， phones are taking cards’ place at the forefront， Wang summarized. 　　Wang said his cellphone-driven life progressed even further when the two online payment giants―Alipay， China’s e-commerce king Alibaba’s mobile payment platform， and WeChat Payment， mobile payment platform of China’s tech giant Tencent―started to cooperate with brick-and-mortar supermarkets in a bid to expand their territory. 　　In the past， shoppers had to wait for the cashier to get change or swipe the card and sign their name to confirm the transaction， which took several minutes. Now， Alipay and WeChat have provided a faster and more convenient payment option. 　　Both Alipay and Wechat allow consumers to pay with a smartphone. With a tap on those mobile payment apps， a QR code and a bar code will be generated. Cashiers can simply scan the code on the screen to make the transaction within three seconds， a much faster and less complicated process than paying in cash or in bank cards. 　　The tug-of-war between Alipay and WeChat Payment has been going on for a while， as the two backed different taxi-hailing apps to promote their services last year and launched digital red envelope wars during the Spring Festival holiday， which ran from February 18 to 24 this year. Now， th