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While many advanced countries around the world have long had credit and debit cards full of discount promotions, cash back, and other reward programs, for a long time cash was king in China. The rapid advancements in technology and economic development in China made a ripe environment to leap frog technologies based on credit card. While mobile payments like Apple Pay and Android Pay are already available in the US, it takes a long time for people to ween themselves away from their Costco and "points back" credit cards.

In China, where consumers were getting used to credit and debit cards, and didn't benefit from credit card incentive programs, mobile payment systems have gained extreme rapid adoption and is dominated by the likes of Alibaba's Alipay and Tencent's WeChat. There are an amazing number of mobile payment platforms right now in China like UnionPay's QuickPass, Apple Pay, Huawei Pay, Samsung Pay, etc.

With WeChat, you can just about do anything like use MoBike shared bikes and order pizza on Elema food delivery services. WeChat is now so persuasive that you can also pay for goods from a street merchant, buying fresh orange juice at one of the many juice vending machines seen in Shanghai subways, or many of the other vending machines in China.

Even when going to McDonalds in China and Hong Kong, much of the ordering is done right now by kiosks with large touch screen displays where you can use mobile payment systems.

Using the WeChat App on the Huawei P9, it's easy to see why it's become so popular. You just need to use the WeChat App to scan the QR Code given by the merchant or vending machine.

   

From there you can just enter your payment password to complete the transaction.

  

In other places in Asia like Taiwan, mobile payments are also trying to make a foothold competing with not only credit cards but also the popular EasyCard used in the Taipei subway.

The Samsung Store in Syntrend Creative Park in Taipei was of course promoting Samsung Pay.

You can even see Samsung Pay ads by Union Bank showing how dates are more successful by using Samsung Pay.

Taiwan also has their homegrown mobile payment system called JKOS Pay.

However, China based AliPay and WeChat are also very popular in tourist places to accommodate all the visitors from China.

In Australia, mobile payment systems haven't really taken off but in places like McDonalds, you have the same payment kiosks seen in China and Hong Kong where you can use credit cards, Apple Pay, and Android Pay.

What is very popular in Australia is Visa payWave and Mastercard PayPass where you can use this contactless credit card payment method almost anywhere even when paying for parking on the street.

While other countries continue on the road towards moderning their payment systems, China has certainly taken the lead on mobile payment technologies and driving major changes in consumer purchasing behavior. Unfortunately, most foreigners are unable to use these Chinese mobile payment systems since a China bank account is typically needed, so most likely the payment systems in China will continue to operate in a parallel universe in a similar way the Internet industry has developed.