Apple Pay more Popular than WeChat Pay in Hong Kong
Residents of Hong Kong were more likely to use Apple Pay than Tencent Holdings’ (HKG: 0700) WeChat Pay. Strangely enough, Hong Kong consumers liked WeChat Pay better but used Apple Pay more.
Around 29% of people polled for J.D. Power’s 2018 Hong Kong Retail Banking Satisfaction Survey said they used Apple Pay, The South China Morning Post reported. Only 8% of respondents admitted to using WeChat Pay, 16% used Ant Financial’s Alipay, and 17% used Alphabet’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Google Pay.
Even though WeChat Pay was number three; it had the highest customer satisfaction rating of 7.7 out of 10 points, Apple Pay was number two with 7.6 points. The survey polled 2,371 people in Hong Kong.
The survey indicates that mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay might be more convenient than SMS solutions like WeChat Pay. Hong Kong is one of the oldest markets for contactless payment solutions. One of the first such solutions the contactless Octopus card has been used on the city’s transits system since 1997.
Alipay and WeChat Pay are growing in popularity in the city around 2,500 Hong Kong taxi drivers now take those solutions. Around 30% of the city’s residents use mobile banking, the survey found.
Apple Pay on Boston Transit
There is more proof how far behind the rest of the world America’s financial technology is. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) only started accepting Apple Pay at its stations on 6 March 2018.
The MBTA operates the subway, commuter trains, buses, and ferries in Boston. The Authority was supposed to add Apple Pay to its mTicket App on 6 March, The Boston Globe reported. Users will be able to pay with facial recognition and fingerprints through the apps.
The Globe did say if MBTA was taking other payment apps such as Google Pay, and Samsung Pay. Since Google Pay and Samsung Pay use the same near-field communications (NFC) technology as Apple Pay their acceptance by MBTA is likely.
