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South China Morning Post (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2165847/cashless-supermarket-bunch-grapes-and-growing-digital-divide?utm_source=Benedict%27s+newsletter&utm_campaign=c168f772dc-Benedict%27s+Newsletter_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4999ca107f-c168f772dc-70354985)

An argument between staff at a cashless supermarket in northern China and an elderly man who did not know how to use his smartphone to buy a bunch of grapes has revived calls for help for those left behind in the digital economy.

The 67-year-old man, identified only by his surname Xie, tried to use cash to buy the fruit at a supermarket in Jixi, Heilongjiang province, on Sunday, video news site Pear Video reported.

Checkout workers rejected the money and insisted that he use his phone to pay via either WeChat Pay or Alipay, prompting the argument, according to the video.

Alipay is owned by Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post.

“I’ll leave if you don’t take the cash,” Xie said in the clip.

“Well, leave if you can,” the cashier replied.

As China goes increasingly cashless, PBOC says cash payment is still alive
Xie took the grapes and approached the door but was stopped by security guards.

“I know it’s not right to leave without paying,” Xie said. “But I have real yuan in my hands. It’s not fake money. Why are you humiliating this old man for not knowing how to use WeChat?”

A security guard later helped Xie process the payment with cash, the report said.

Very interesting news and incidence that have happened in the china. I never thought someone can be so stubborn upon the decision of not accepting the cash as mode of payment. This is truly intriguing to me as it is unusual to see within the country where you cant even pay with the real money. So this is like forceful dragging towards the digitisation I guess. However it could be either good to see them approaching like that, initially it may sound very irritating but when there will be complete digitalisation of the country then it may just develop very very fast than the before time. So its either good or bad and depends mostly upon the various factors within the country.

It's sad to see the elderly needing to depend on the kindness of strangers, even when they've got the money to pay. The man's got a point. Why the hell should WeChat be a prerequisite for buying fruit at the market?

You shouldn't need a smartphone and a bank account to pay for a bundle of grapes. ::)

I'm glad I live in a place where people actually want cash, more than any of the alternatives.

I personally not too agree with such an immediate switch, it is a big concern for an older generation who doesnt know how to used advance technology, I think the wise way is to provide two ways of payment which is cashless and fiat, cashless transaction is very useful for speed and efficient transaction, but machine can be broken, the Internet also can have disturbance, if we only rely on cashless and something wrong then all of the transaction could be paralysed

Thats not moving towards the cashless society, that sounds like forcing the senior nationals to do whatever they want and against their will. Thats actual bad impression made by the country and they should be ashamed of this scenario. How can anyone expect the seniors to get into new world immediately if they never have thought about the drastic changes that are happening around the world. They should not be forced but rather they should be allowed to live the life they want. I mean common you gonna tell them at their 60's and 80's that "hey man, cash works no longer, pay me with your phone". What the heck!! ???

It is just one story from China, but some other countries like Sweden is have only 1% of payments in cash and rest is electronic payments. This is way in which today's society is going and it will be necessary for everyone to adapt to this. But solution is not to stop with cash payments, such option should stay until one day people accept only electronic payments.

Most of us would like to pay with BTC or some other crypto, and with time there will be such stores - what to do when some people come in and try to pay with cash and there is no physical options to accept such payment? In any case, we need a transitional period - people can not stay hungry because they do not understand how to use new technology.

In any civilized country, laws must work.
If cash payments are not banned in stores, the store must accept cash.
Some stores try to set their own rules and for this they should be fined for very large sums.
The whole trend leads to the fact that the chips will integrated in the body of maternity homes at birth.
And violators will be disconnected.

In fact, with such rapidly growing technologies, it is a pity for old people who simply do not understand some of the nuances ...

This is out of context and it looks kinda misleading.I think it's fake news or propaganda.
If this case is true,that doesn't prove that the entire country of China will just ban cash payments and adopt digital money as the only payment solution.Perhaps this is just a way for the communist government to increase it's control over the people(by spreading fear that cash will be banned).Stupid conspiracy theory. ;D

Before entering the store, asked to pay cash or digital money. Not all elderly people can use it. It's better than embarrassing the elderly like the news

China is really aiming to get ahead of everyone. They are thinking it right. If they can do so as we can also. But in the end I know that all people will be able to use it.

China is #6 in the Telegraph list of #10 most cashless societies. However, I think that the image of China as cashless is rather inaccurate. Sure, there are like 3 debit cards per capita there which is huge, but only 10% of people are actually making payments via applications rather than in cash. Rejecting payments in cash seems unreasonable and too much to me. It's good the guard hepled in that case, though.

This is, imo, the most important part of the article. If we want more payments were made without using cash, we have to realize that some people, elderly in particular, probably will never adjust to that. The security guard in question is a hero imo, and we need people like him in every store if we want the transition to be as painless as possible. Also, every place with a sign "We accept Bitcoin" have to be always happy to accept cash as well. Only this way we can avoid unnecessary hostility towards its usage.

This has really exposed the need for education especially for the young ones. The society is going cashless obviously, people need to be educated more to follow up with the growth. It would have been more embarrassing if it were to be someone in the 30s...


Probably acting out orders from the management either to safe his head/job  ;D
The security guard might have assisted by instruction from either the management via phone call from one of the hidden offices around the mall... :o


This should be away forward on the cashless cliché until a time will come where users themselves would fancy the use of electronics by themselves and not to be coarced on it.


Hey friend, you don't need to be glad over any of it. It is a financial revolution coming, you better get ready to embrace it now and be ahead rather than struggle with it when it will get down to you  ;D Teach your old folks and younger ones now...

Every government has a way of following up with other governments to be better positioned for trade.

Welcome y'all to the digital age ;D … Very funny and interesting one as I kept picturing the scene in my head and how infuriated the old man must have been.

I really would not say it should be something OK to impose cashless age on people. Some of these old folks find it hard to even be able to understand how technology works and they are so much fixated with the way they have always done things traditionally in the past. So, trying to make it at all cost to go digital is like punishing them for still being around in this digital age, which to me seems unfair.

Good thing he found someone who ended up helping him, but at least, I feel the cashiers should have been able to assist the old man in a way and not just discard him like that.

I doubt when this is going to happen, that the government will do it in that way. Usually the government will give advance

notice to people when they do drastic changes to the financial system. When India abolished its highest-value rupee notes,

they gave people advance notice to exchange them, so I figure a mayor change like this will be backed by some good

preparation and training and alternative payment providers will give help to the elderly and uneducated people.  ???

How did Zimbabweans (with a high percentage of uneducated people), cope with Billion dollar notes, when they were first

issued? (Many of them cannot even count to 20)  ;D

Fucking China back at it again. I mean, what do you expect, that darn country has blocked more websites than North Korea LOL!

Forcing citizens out of nowhere and not accepting cash is more of a dick move than an "economical move". Is China just trying too hard to collapse or what?

How else will strangers who you don't even know, track how you smuggle drugs? Having a bank account is a must you see, especially for people to stalk you on how you spend your money, and then for the bank to "freeze" your account with funds unnecessarily in the name of "security policy". If anything people are just protecting your money from you, and helping you live economically.  ::)

No, the most important line of the article is this:


It's a nonstory.
The supermarket has different lanes for check-out just like here in Europe we have fast lane (under 10 products) and two types of cash-outs, one where you scan your products yourself and you do also the payment (which works only with a credit/debit card).

I think this is not a proper example to give to say CHINA, a country with almost 2 billion people is turning to a cashless society. It was a cashless market and if you go into any of them in any other country than you do not pay with cash neither.

China as of course one of the most innovative and improving country in the world leading in many economical ways has these cashless places but I am pretty sure there must be a place that old dude can buy his fruit with his cash somewhere very close, there are always places to buy fruits nearby.

This of course shows that there are cashless places more than ever however it won't be anytime soon til we are cashless society.

China as ever expanding digitize country always overlook the older generation and old tradition. its a wake up call for all of us not to neglect part of the society even it is not move forward at the same speed. 

Its close to harassment. This kind of news is going to be common in china.

This is one disadvantage in a country that is starting to build a cashless society, they should be starting it in Disney where people visiting does have phones with them where ever they go. Singapore or Hong Kong is a good place to start with, why not there.

That's the problem when a society switches over something abruptly and without much of the people's discretion. It might seem that this is just a minor issue but this is what older people face when more and more technology is being embedded on our everyday lives; they can't keep up and tend to not change their ways immediately. That's why I don't believe a fully cashless society is possible as soon as possible, considering that the older age groups wouldn't adapt yet and tend to be adamant in changing what they're already used to.

Well this is an incident that smells business. It is clear that companies offering cashless transaction or payments would always be happy to hear about their payment system was being used. It would certainly give them more revenue or profit. But I would love to hear if they would be applying the use of cryptocurrency like bitcoin because transactions for me can easily be done.

I agree and I appreciate what the security guard did to his fellowmen instead of discriminating he helped him process the payment with cash. Such good deed will be rewarded and remembered. It would also be nice if there is another choice to pay for fiat as cashless payment may not be adopted by old or younger people that are not exposed with the so called technology that trigger a cashless society.

This is just poor customer service. If they want to switch to cashless, they still should have lanes for cash because not everyone is up to date with technology. The very young ones and the very old ones are not using cellphones yet. If they force it, it is like discrimanation to those who do not how to use the technology and those who can't afford it.

This is great news, although I am curious what they will eventually do with their fiat money should the country start going the cashless route. If this one man had a hard time coping with going cashless, how do you think the rest of their country will react to cryptocurrency? That said, perhaps in a few years time, China will also be the first to implement country-wide use of cryptocurrency. What do you think?

A cashless society will create a huge problem, though it has some great positive effects on the society. I guess it is too early and with the sudden movement of the country making their citizen fall into trouble and harassment. Our country reduced the ATM daily transaction limit, in the move of the cashless society. Not all stores accept cards or other online payment methods, thus the government doesn't understand if the citizen needs cash suddenly, what will happen.

Yes, Chinese people use Alipay or Wechat pay on a daily basis for almost every kind of transactions.
Even people on the street has a QR code for asking donation.
But that said, Chinese government is one of the most hostile Gov in the world against Bitcoin.
A lot of people that I know got their bank account freezed because of  involving crypto trading,or selling crytpo for fiat.

From what I've heard, places in China have increasingly started to even reject cash as this article demonstrates.

Is it really a good thing given that now people are essentially forced into either Wechat or Alipay for their groceries and all that? Even though theoretically, paper money is still legal tender, but in practice, we may see people discriminate against that form of currency increasingly.

It's interesting how fast China has undergone the cashlessness-isation process, though. I think it's because of the cheap and convenient nature of their payment processors that allow this to happen, unlike Western counterparts like paypal with the huge fees and chargeback concerns.

Younger people normally adjust to new technologies quickly and easily, so there's nothing to worry about here. While older people are those who need some help in this case. Although over 50% of the World's Population is under 30 (I was surprised myself, but it’s true) , it would be morally wrong to not take older people into account. If they prefer to deal with cash we have to provide them with this opportunity.

I think that is just a small side of a big city in China. In fact, China has many places where there are poor people. We should not just look at one aspect of the whole country.

This becomes a problem when it comes to the older generation. Honestly, even in this cryptocurrencies age the UX problem still exist and detain the adoption for the mainstream. The UX is too techy its hard for the regular user.

The solution is we really need to socialize to older generation about the cashless society. Or to increase their curiosity to use the digital payment.

Problems with elderly people are unavoidable; however, we should not leave them alone in the world which becomes more and more advanced. We should help them with understanding modern technology instead. I am not surprised that the Chinese government wants its people to use cashless transactions. It would make it easier for them to track the financial activity of their citizens. I am quite sure that the grey market will move to previous metals if that happens.

Why bother buying on that store if they don't accept your money? Come on? It's not the only stores that existed in your place, just go find a store that accept cash. While this story might be true or just made up, they shouldn't push on what they want to do to their customer. Cash is not dead yet so why would they do that?

Most northern european countries use almost exclusively debit card for payments, few places refuses cash for the main reason they don't have change or don't want to be bothered with large amounts of cash at hands.
I asked few people i know and most of them they actually never have with them cash.
I guess is coming for every country, but is also a right step toward using cryptos.

I do not know how on the yuan banknote in China, however, on the banknotes in my country (Ukraine) it is indicated that all institutions and organizations of the country are obliged to accept these banknotes for payment on the territory of the state. If I refuse to accept the bills of my state in a retail outlet of any form of ownership, these persons who allowed it and their leaders should be held accountable. So it should be in any normal state.
A similar incident that occurred in China can occur in any state if citizens are forced to switch to the use of cryptocurrency or even non-cash forms of cash payments. This coercion should not be, otherwise there will be a rejection of non-cash payments by citizens.

This problem will continue until overbearing cashiers are not trained on the right way to do things. I don't expect that a policy on cash would be that total and would receive blanket application without considering the payment of something so small as fruits. Government at times in the process of trying to do the right thing end up causing more problem for the citizens they promise to serve and if the country should have been practicing a transparent democratic government, the voice of the people would have been heard. The youth are the ones that would be more convenient using electronic money to meet their payment but for the elders  who have served the country and built it to the extent it is not granted some slack to get basic things with their cash, then such policy is nothing short of inhumane and that is why government needs to as a matter of urgency review the policy and mandate everyone in charge of collection of payment to ensure that the Yuan has never ceased to be a legal tender.

That is just a start as there is so much more to come. Now, a time will come when PayPal will beg for usage, but of course, since the owner have always been clamoring on blockchain technology being the future, I am sure they may as well just integrate blockchain in their system in the long run and maybe turn to an exchange. Just thinking!

A lot is changing, disruptions with blockchain technology, digital age kicking in and trying to eliminate the usage of physical cash and really, some section of the world will always find it hard to be able to cope and adapt to these new changes and most especially the old ones, so this to me was like a punishment for trying to force that old man to use We Chat Pay or Alipay by all means.

So the Chinese government can control every possible aspect of the lives of their citizens.

Look up social credit in China. Link that to payments and you are well and truly fucked from every angle. If you fall out of favour with government edicts your life will be an order magnitude worse than some communist party robot.

Cashlessness is a vital element in enforcing it. I hope that ever increasing nightmarishness of Chinese society is taken on board by all the morons running towards cashlessness elsewhere. Once it's gone cash won't be coming back and it hands limitless power to those running it.

PayPal will use more when people use their coins in the market instead putting in exchange. The world is turning towards digital currency and I hope in the near future we will see people using their cryptocurrency even in their local markets. I will really enjoy cashless society and am waiting anxiously for that time. I am sure after few years the number of crypto users will increase.

So China will abandon all the people who don't have wechat or don't know how to pay through cashless format? I don't think this is appropriate manner they need to provide all the available payment method and leve it to the people to use what they want,imposing some system by arrogant commands will leads to lot of problems and hate against that system.

That’s offensive and aggressive approach of a cashless transaction to an elderly man is unacceptable and harsh.
Kudos to that security guard with kindhearted attitude for helping him, if I was the one being embarrassed by that cashier then he/she must face my revenge. “I will buy him/her”.

I do agree of changes, but give it some time for others to know.

if china is really pushing its way to accommodate cashless purchases, i think they are setting a new pace there, i think if they will continue to practice this, they are more likely going in for a cashless society, even the customer is at an old age, they never considered it and insisted the use of cashless payment, i hope this will furthermore pushed, and more and more country will follow until the use of fiat will be diminished.

I live in a corrupt, industrially undeveloped, puppet country of Eastern Europe, where the Internet is accessible to 50% of the population. But even in this country, the government is adopting laws that provide for minimal use of cash money and a gradual transition to electronic money.

The supermarket must have an option for paying cash for customers who are not using smartphones like elderly people to avoid such kind of problems this is purely poor management and customer service assuming that all people are using cashless payments or either put stickers on the main door that this store is for cash less payments only.   

It is still too early to go full cashless, even for China. The process of switching to cashless payment shall be done gradually.
People need time to learn how to use new technology, and first of all they need a good incentive to learn - not enforcing and refusing to accept cash, but proper popularizing and education.

China's mobile payment is developing very fast!
Alibaba's Alipay is used in most countries around the world!
And mobile payments are safe and the possibility of being stolen is low!

"Don't like it? Go to another store!" -  is not how customers should be treated. It's good that in this particular case there was this security guard who helped the elderly. I don't think this story was made up, but actually something like this worth inventing because it can be a good scenario for social advertising. Cash will not disappear completely during our lifetime. There will be always people who prefer dealing with it. I even think it will never disappear because it is so convenient in some cases. So, moving towards cashless society we should reserve the room for cash also.

the truth is rather brutal. What China have is human capital. China would not hesitate to enforce even better tech to control its citizen in the expense of some of them. for them, its consider collateral damage. self sacrifice for the betterment of others mindset is strong within their people. different from most of the western country, personal rights is much more important than everyone interest.

as good as if in a country want to pay without cash must be slowly because there are still many people who do not understand using this smart phone input from me

That is really something not so good, I must say. In as much as we keep talking about the cashless age being the future, I believe it is something on its own that will gradually diminish, but in this case of these old people being left out for not being able to adapt to the new ways of doing things, is really not a good one.

Moving forward towards a cashless society does not mean you should at least have a way of either enlightening people first or at least considered that some people are still living a borrowed time, but they are still living.

Probably, in this kind of scenario, the cashiers would have just left the old man stranded or being denied his craving for grapes all in the name of not going cashless. That is preposterous!

Accommodating cashless is one thing and trying to impose it on people is one other thing. Sometimes, I usually feel like living in China for the citizens would just be like living in bondage as the government could just wake up one morning, come up with some B.S and then just expect everyone to adhere to it, without even a single deliberation on it.
How do they then want the old ones to survive? Technology is not what you impose on people, it evolves itself naturally, and this is the same thing that would happen with cashless as money is experiencing an evolution, and in that case, you cannot just stop considering the old folks that are still in existence at the moment.

I think all countries have developed cashless society, many countries have been applied e-money on all transaction in their countries, but they still don't use blockchain technology

Obviously, most western nations are nowhere near the level of cashlessness that China is already at.

The question really have to be asked of whether cashlessness is really something that will be advantageous, especially when the cashless nature of transactions are facilitated by payment processors which are centralized, and have close ties to the government.

From articles that I've read I generally see that most Chinese people have already made the switch to cashless daily transactions, and cash is a rarity these days within the country. Are these people left behind though? Probably, in one way or another if they're not technologically literate.

The reason for the centralized cashless economy is they want to record all the transactions happening in their country so they can make more revenues from the taxes but it don't have much advantage to the people other than carrying less weight wallet since all our money can be in the cards just because card purchases have lot of hidden fees which can increase our expenses other than paying with paper money.

Sick story. Payments using a cashless method should be encouraged by discounts...but not imposed as the unique method of payments.
Till there is cash printed and circulating, you cannot impose people to not using it.
Back to cryptocurrencies, it should also be encouraged  :)

A change is something that is inevitable but just like you said it is a good thing to allow it to come natural. Most of this old folks are too old to start fixing their heads on the idea of these new technologies that keeps popping up and it really takes the younger generation to quickly blend with it. Over years, these old generation will definitely pass away and it would be surprising to see how things would evolve it automatically.

All the above, trying to pull a stunt like this is just uncalled for and even as much as we know that cashless can really help, it does not mean you should just all of a sudden start imposing things. A slow progress alone will sustain for serving its purposes, rapid things may go away in rapid.

This is one of the conflict between the generation x and the millennial or simple the old generation and the present generation. It is one of the gap that should be filled. The problem of technologies which is needed be conceptualized more for the improvements of the both parties.

Nice story, I really enjoyed. Thanks for sharing with us. It is a lesson for the rest of the world that they should also use digital currency instead of cash. China has fast growing economy in the world and takes number one in the list. It is right that they are the highest users of digital currency in their country. It is good because they feel ease while using their digital currency.

;D China has just been doing freaky things over the years and I am not surprised that something like this would be coming up. There is just this thing about them and using force to want to do everything, well, I understand that is something that is applicable to their system of governance over the years anyway. It is really not appropriate to start putting things by all means on every individual.

What happened to choice? What happened to freedom of will? Honestly, it is just appalling and I wonder how the citizens really cope in this region, would have moved out long ago for greener pastures where I would not have to live the day thinking of the government coming up with some silly policies that will affect a lot as it segregates some set of people.

The desire for cashless payments is normal for modern society. In addition, you do not need to spend money on the production of bills and coins.

Abruptly excluding cash form of payment from stores is not the right way to proceed to cashless payment.
You can`t expect 100% of population to be aware of cashless payment - transition shall be done gradually.

Other than that, this is very positive trend - cashless payment is much more convenient to my taste.

That is right. The fact that China has a very high GDP is just because of its production sector and huge exports and this sector is run by labors that get minimum wages.

I do agree that there might be allowances given by the government but the GDP per capita is exaggerated for not all the people have the similar income and the richest of them are over masking the poor. SO it is not very easy to completely shift to the cashless society.