Ant Group and fintech come of age
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IN 1300 OR so Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant, introduced Europeans to a monetary marvel witnessed in China. The emperor, he wrote, “causes the bark of trees, made into something like paper, to pass for money all over his country”. Eventually the West also adopted paper money, some six centuries after China invented it. More recent foreign travellers to China have come back agog at the next big step for money: the total disappearance of paper, replaced by pixels on phone screens.
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “On the march”
From the October 10th 2020 edition
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