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.

If history doesn’t quite repeat     1     (it), it certainly rhymes. With demand for bicycles rapidly    2     (rise), and nations preparing to spend billions to redesign their cities with a new focus on cycling and walking, it’s worth remembering     3     the invention of the bicycle in the late 19th century transformed the world over.

For a few heady years in the 1890s, the bicycle was the must-have — swift, affordable, stylish transportation that could take you anywhere you cared to go, anytime you     4     (like), for free.

By 1898 cycling had become     8     a popular activity in the United States that the New York Journal of Commerce claimed it was costing restaurants and theaters more than $100 million a year in lost business. Bicycle manufacturing became one of America’s     9     (big) and most advanced industries. A third of all patent     10     (apply) were bicycle related—so many that the U.S. patent office had to build a separate building to deal with them all.