China

Despite the massive adoption of mobile payments in China, cash in circulation grew rapidly in 2022.

The People’s Bank of China tells merchants to accept cash or face sanctions in the wake of a widening digital divide. The rapid transition to digital payments is leaving some behind and creating “gaps of digitalization”.

With digital payments thriving in China, so is payment-related crime. The authorities are punishing offenders by banning them from using mobile and card payments and stranding them in a cash-only world.

China’s antitrust agency is looking at whether to launch a probe into Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay, prompted by the central bank which argues the digital payment giants have used their dominant positions to quash competition.

Amidst the Coronavirus outbreak, China’s central bank is launching efforts to disinfect or replace banknotes which have been potentially in contact with the Coronavirus.

China has been at the heart of payments innovation over the past decades leading some observers to boldly announce that cash is on its way out. But banknote demand is continuing to grow

A medieval Chinese coin that was found in England has triggered the curiosity of historians. Should it turn out to have been brought to Europe more recently than the 14th century, it reminds us about the role of cash in human exchanges in the past and present.

Alipay organised "cashless weeks" encouraging merchants to accept exclusively mobile payments, leaving consumers relying on cash behind.

WeChat and Alipay are becoming mainstream payment methods in mainland China, but at what cost?

Macao has decided to crack down on criminality by installing facial recognition technology in ATMs.