China’s digital-payments giant keeps bank chiefs up at night
Ant Financial, with 500m customers at home, plans to expand
IN WESTERN countries it is common to talk about American technology being dominant. From an Asian perspective that seems off. Fresh from visiting the region, where buskers and kerbside fishmongers can be paid by presenting a phone, Schumpeter has found it a shock being back in New York. There, buying most things involves signing bits of paper and PIN numbers are viewed as dangerously transgressive. Only 2% of credit- and debit-card transactions in America are authenticated with PIN numbers; 19bn cheques are written in the country every year.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Ants in your pants”
Business August 19th 2017
- Efficiency eludes the construction industry
- Marine contractors have made huge leaps in productivity
- American business leaders break with Donald Trump
- A trade dispute threatens America’s booming solar industry
- Computer-game tournaments go mainstream
- China’s digital-payments giant keeps bank chiefs up at night
From the August 19th 2017 edition
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