The payment war between WeChat and Alipay is still escalating. Can the banks’ counterattack win back lost customers?

The popularity of WeChat and Alipay has driven the mobile payment boom, making the era of paper money a thing of the past. Now, Jack Ma and Pony Ma are further upgrading the payment business. In a few years, your mobile phone may also be out of service.

WeChat and Alipay make paper money disappear

Mobile payment came quietly and replaced paper money without anyone noticing. How did they do it?

This requires a look at the careful planning of the two big guys, Jack Ma and Pony Ma:

• Alipay: online shopping - third-party payment platform - transaction security - business expansion - offline payment;
• WeChat: Chat - Social Upgrade - Red Packet Interaction - Business Development - Offline Payment;

With the step-by-step planning of Jack Ma and Pony Ma, we love shopping on Taobao and chatting on WeChat more and more, and finally we find that paper money has become a thing of the past.

This is a manifestation of the progress of the times. Mobile payment has made people's lives more convenient. In the future, they no longer need to have a bulging wallet when they go out. It may even make pickpockets lose their jobs. At the same time, the reduction of paper money has also contributed to environmental protection.

But while you are still immersed in mobile payment, a payment war is escalating...

After the next upgrade, the phone may become a memory.

First, both Alipay and WeChat began to cooperate with highways and launched automatic license plate recognition payment. Now Alipay has taken over Henan and WeChat has taken over Shandong. A war for contactless highway payment has begun.

In the future, you will no longer need to stop and get a card when entering the highway, and you will not need to go through complicated procedures to apply for ETC.

High-speed payment

In addition, some restaurants have introduced face payment, which allows users to pay by face recognition through Alipay authentication. Alipay and WeChat unmanned supermarkets have opened in many cities, and shopping in supermarkets has become a matter of "grab and go".

With the continuous upgrades of Alipay and WeChat, one day in the future you may find that you no longer need mobile payment.

Is there still a chance for the bank that has been deeply hurt?

Let’s take a look at the situation of traditional banks. For many years, they have been criticized for their low efficiency and poor service attitude. The complexity of their business processes is also extremely inconvenient, which has made many people extremely sad and disappointed.

Therefore, when Alipay and WeChat got involved in traditional banking businesses such as payment and transfer, they quickly attracted a large number of users, greatly reducing the banks' personal business volume.

But banks are still trying to fight back. Major banks are actively launching mobile clients and want to get a share of the mobile payment industry. In addition, the Agricultural Bank of China is promoting face recognition withdrawals nationwide, and the Construction Bank is using face recognition payment for commercial purposes...

WeChat and Alipay have been inseparable in the payment war for many years. Now banks are also eager to try. Whether banks can win back the lost hearts and minds remains to be verified.

Which payment method do you prefer? Do you think banks can reverse their defeat?