1 . When diners ask for the bill in an urban Chinese restaurant, they are more likely to reach for their mobile phones than their wallets. This reflects the rapid spread of mobile payment platforms,which are pushing urban China towards becoming a cashless society.
In a survey of 1,000 urban consumers conducted by the Financial Times, 98% of respondents (受访者) said they had used mobile payment platforms over the past three months. For example, Alibaba’s Alipay was the most frequently used payment platform preferred by 79% of respondents. That is a far greater proportion than those who said they used credit cards (45%) or cash (65%).
These respondents said they most often used them for payments in supermarkets and shopping malls, but they are also popular for ordering food, buying travel tickets or eating out.
Unsurprisingly, the younger the respondents, the more likely they were to have adopted this relatively young technology. While only 56% of respondents aged 35 or older said they preferred making mobile payments to paying via PC, even though almost all owned smart phones, 88% of 18 to 24-year-olds preferred paying via their mobile device.
Mobile platforms are now taking advantage of the big data resources of their parent companies to expand business,and to challenge the traditional banks. It is not surprising that China’s big banks are refusing to co-operate with the upstarts, limiting the range of services they are able to offer. On the other hand, China’s banks, especially the big four state lenders, are known to fiercely guard their turf (领域). Both regulators and China’s well-entrenched (根基深厚) banks will need to adapt if these online lenders are to succeed.
1. How does the author introduce his topic about mobile payment platforms?| A．By raising a question. | B．By giving an example. |
| C．By making a comparison. | D．By listing the details of a survey. |
| A．Cash. | B．Credit cards. |
| C．Alibaba’s Alipay. | D．Mobile payment platforms. |
| A．People chose to pay via PC because of lack of smart phones. |
| B．The younger the respondents, the more smart phones they owned. |
| C．The younger the respondents, the greater chance that they paid by smart phones |
| D．Paying by smart phones was not popular at all among the people aged 35 or older. |
| A．They feel the threat from mobile payment. |
| B．They can’t share their big data resources. |
| C．They are determined to ensure financial safety. |
| D．They are refused to cooperate with the platforms. |
2 . AI, 5G, cloud computing and other digital technologies are not only changing our lives but shaping the economy as well.
China’s six major commercial banks are stepping up digital wallet efforts to provide new drive for the e-CNY (数字人民币) trials in the country, as reported by Shanghai Securities News on March 23.
“The functions and properties of the-CNY are exactly the same as those of the paper currency, except that the form is digital,” said Mu Changchun, head of the People’s Bank of China’s Digital Currency Research Institute.
Many people are puzzled by e-CNY and electronic payments. “Digital currency has the characteristics of both paper money and electronic payment,” said Wu Qianhong, a professor at the School Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University. “In theory, digital currency can replace paper money, Alipay and WeChat payments.”
Compared with Alipay and WeChat payments, e-CNY features anonymity (匿名性) and security. E-commerce platforms that accept payments via e-CNY will not have access to user’s personal information. E-CNY users can open an anonymous digital wallet by registering a mobile phone number, and telecom operators cannot disclose (泄露) customer information to the central bank or any third-party institutions. Mu noted that e-CNY user’s privacy protection is at the highest level among all the existing payment tools.
Similar to Alipay and WeChat payments, using e-CNY requires an account. After obtaining the other party’s account number, users can enter the amount of digital money to transfer (转钱) and then enter the payment password to complete the transaction (交易). However, the process behind these transfers are different. For electronic payments, the transfer has to go through a third party, and the receivers will get the transferred money only when they withdraw money from banks. But e-CNY transfers only need a payer and a receiver to complete a transaction. Therefore, it guarantees risk-free payments, according to Wu.
In simple terms, e-CNY can be considered “money”, while electronic payments are like “wallets”.
1. What can we know about e-CNY?| A．It is issued by six major commercial banks. |
| B．It combines paper money and electronic payment. |
| C．It is designed to replace Alipay and WeChat payments. |
| D．It has exactly the same function as other payment tools. |
| A．By limiting access to personal information. |
| B．By storing personal data in the central bank. |
| C．By opening a unique digital wallet for each user. |
| D．By linking telecom operators to a mobile phone number. |
| A．E-NCY transfers require to go through a third party. |
| B．E-NCY is more convenient than other electronic payments. |
| C．E-NCY can be transferred without the receiver’s information. |
| D．E-NCY and electronic payments ensure security in the same way. |
| A．To promote the use of e-NCY. |
| B．To inform readers of digital RMB. |
| C．To compare different types of payments. |
| D．To describe the impact of digital technologies. |
