In late August, the HKMA granted the first batch of five SVF licences, namely Alibaba Alipay Wallet, WeChat Pay, Tap&Go, TNG e-Wallet and Octopus Easy Wallet. However, most people in Hong Kong do not have a deep understanding of stored value payments, so the popularity is far less than that of nearby areas. For example, in Hangzhou, China, the birthplace of Taobao Alibaba and known as the “largest mobile payment city”, a German recently experienced the convenience of going out without cash.
When he visited Hangzhou in August, he tested the power of the “largest mobile payment city”, using only his mobile phone and passport: he took the bus with Alipay in the morning, and when he arrived at his destination, he scanned the QR code to pay for shopping, eating, and ordering. At the end of the day, Ah Fu said, “I have been to more than 30 countries around the world, and there is no city as convenient as Hangzhou. Even if it is an ordinary biscuit stall on the side of the road, mobile payment can be completed.”
Imagine that the convenience of being able to pay for all the expenses of food, clothing, housing and transportation with only a mobile phone should be attractive to Hong Kong people who are efficient in everything, but in fact, on the contrary, Hong Kong people seem to have less incentive to use stored value payment tools. The first step in using SVFs is to add value to your account, but at present, most SVFs cannot be topped up on the same day, and there is a limit on the amount of stored value, which makes users feel troublesome and discouraged. In the case of Ah Fuk, a foreigner, the stored value can be used to pay for ordinary barbecue stalls on the roadside, but in Hong Kong, not all public transportation such as minibuses and taxis are available. In addition, there are stored value vehicles that mainly target small merchants who cannot pay by credit cards, but the lack of publicity and discounts have made consumers less motivated to use the new technology. Earlier, a friend saw that a stored value facility (SVF) was cooperating with a convenience store to launch a discount, so he downloaded it and gave it a try, but there was a problem with the phone app screen during payment, and the staff was not familiar with the operation, so it was better to use a contactless (payWave) credit card for a “toot”.
Although Hong Kong is still dominated by cash payments, innovative payments are a global trend, and Hong Kong must also catch up in this regard: solve the most basic technical problems, mostly from the perspective of user experience, and eventually be accepted and popularized by consumers.
