A cashless society is defined as one that doesn’t use cash in monetary transactions (交易). These societies favor alternative means of payment, such     1     credit cards, or contactless payment.

Of all the companies     2     (move) closer to becoming cashless, most people agree that Sweden is the closest. 85% of the country has access to online banking and only 2% of the country’s transactions consist of cash.

There     3     (be) a number of reasons for this cashless trend. Sweden has access to a popular payment app     4     (call) Swish, which more than 50% of the country uses. But the     5     (big ) catalyst (引发变化的因素) so far is that most Swedish merchants don’t access cash payment.

China also has a vast cashless market,    6     is mostly dominated by Tencent’s WeChat Pay or Alipay, which is owned by Alibaba. But unlike many other countries, China hasn’t embraced (欣然接受) credit card payment. Instead, most Chinese consumers make payment by scanning QR codes (二维码) on     7     (they) phones.

Most merchants request payment via QR codes and it’s not uncommon     8     (see) QR codes located all throughout China. And this trend is starting to spread to other countries that have a lot of Chinese     9     (travel).

The growing cashless trend has led many people to wonder     10     the U.S. will eventually go cashless. It is possible since U.S. consumers are increasingly moving away from cash and embracing other forms of payment.

How are things going these days?

Hoping to receive your reply soon.

Yours,

Li Hua

4 . Three months ago, I landed in Beijing International Airport after a very long flight from Vancouver, Canada. I thought that it would just be a normal summer, but little did I know that my understanding of how to pay for things was about to be completely changed. 

As an international student who had not been back to China for three years, I knew that it would take me some time to readjust to the life in China. However, I did not expect that I wouldn’t even be able to do things as simple as taking the subway. 

I still remember asking my cousin if I could borrow his metro card. He looked at me with such astonishment and then started laughing: “No one uses a metro card now. You have your phone!” He then explained to me which application I needed to download and how to connect it with WeChat pay. 

I was so dumbfounded by how convenient payment had become in China. When I had just come back, I still had the habit of carrying some cash with me when I went out. But soon, I realized that there was no place for me to use it. Even the smallest convenience stores support Alipay or WeChat pay. Online transactions (交易) and mobile payments have become the new norm.

Mobile payment is so common for people in China that they are used to it by now. But for me, it has been new and exciting. 

Back in Vancouver, there was no way of going to the mall or supermarket without carrying cash, a debit card (借记卡) or a credit card. Mobile payment in Canada is not as prevalent (流行的) as it is in China. Personally, I have never paid using my phone during my stay in Canada. I had to carry cash around everywhere. Contrary to that, I have not used cash to pay at all since I arrived back in China. 

Now I am getting used to the concept of mobile payment. Gradually, I stopped asking the vendors (小贩) if I could use WeChat pay and just showed them my payment code. Thinking back on my experience with this “new” method of paying over the past few months, I have to admit that our lives have indeed become much more convenient with the presence of mobile payment.

8 . You may have recently heard of NFT technology, which permits digital works of art to be collected and sold for millions of dollars.

But why would people pay so much money for something they cannot even touch? And what is driving the current rise in NFTs?     1    

What is an NFT?

NFT stands for non-fungible token(非同质化代币).     2     It is based on a technology called blockchain (区块链), which is also used with digital currency systems known as cryptocurrency.

What kinds of things are NFTs?

    3     They are usually bought with electronic money. The form of digital currency mainly used with NFTs is called ether. NFTs have been used to sell sports videos, pieces of land in worlds that only exist on computers and even the first-ever tweet by Twitter's founder.

What do critics say about NFTs?

Critics note that traditional art, like a painting, can be placed on a wall and looked at.     4     They point out that even though an artist can “own” a digital piece, others can easily save a copy of the same work as a file on their computer.

What are some prices for NFTs?

In February, a 10-second video showing an image of former U. S. President Donald Trump sold on an NFT marketplace for over $6 million. The first-ever published tweet from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey recently sold for nearly $3 million.

    5    

It is too early to say if NFTs are good investments. But so far, many people have items that are worth more than what they paid for them. This is no guarantee, however, that such buyers will be able to sell their digital objects for a profit.