Wallet

Wallet

All digital wallet have flaws, Wechat pay is no exception.    

There are one main weakness and two small defects

Ø The main problem of Wallet is security, including losing money, and revealing bank information.

  Although Wallet can set 6 digit password, someone will use the fingerprint to save time. In this way, if people lose their phones or their account is hacked, the money in their Wallets is easily used by others. Also, in order to use Wallet, people need to connect at least one credit card with their Wechat, so, users may revealing their bank information when they lose their accounts. According to Smith’s article (2016), in 2015, there were 200 million users who attached their credit card with Wechat. Therefore, more than 200 million credit cards have the possibility of unauthorized charges, which might cause a heavy economic loss.

 

 Users’ money may also be lost in other ways. Cheaters will hack users accounts firstly, then pretend to be the users and chat with their friends or families to ask money, or they just chat with the victims for a time period and make the victims produce a good impression and then ask money for help. The statistic showed that every one user average has 128 friends (Smith, 2016), and at least one or two people will be swindled. There is a true example from daily life. From the China national news, a man named Liu who pretended to be a woman defrauded 12,900 yuan (CAD 2,547) from another man named He. During several months, He never even met Liu once, but he was willing to transfer money to Liu. (Man in Guangdong accused of posing as woman in RMB12,900 WeChat fraud, 2016)  

  

  

      Ø Second, the Wechat payment is limited.

  The digital wallets are used more and more often in daily life. Sometimes, people even do not need to bring any cash or cards, all the purchases can be made by digital wallets. Wechat wallet works well in this respect. About 200 million users have made a payment by Wechat pay and 300,000 stores accepts Wechat payment. (Smith, 2016) People can use Wechat wallet to pay for taxi, clothes, food, hotel, supermarket and so on. It is seems convenient, because Wechat is a complete mobile phone software. However, once the smart phones are lost, out of power, have no signal, or have no response, the Wechat payment can not be used during any above situations that will make users anxious and embarrassed.

 Third, for individual, Wechat is likely to cause personal over-consumption. Digital wallet is in many more convenient than cash and cards, so customers can use Wechat payments in many ways and places. When people use Wechat to pay for a small amount of money or send some red packets they will not feel anything. But after accumulating over a long period, individuals will find that they have spent a lot unconsciously. Additionally, digital wallet allowed people spend money with easy operation no matter how big the amount is, therefore, customers will feel that they spend much less than they really are (Are Digital Wallets Helping or Hurting Your Finances?, 2015).

 To conclude, there are still several problems that exist when people use Wechat payment as a digital wallet. Therefore, the Tencent company should follow up to perfect Wechat pay, also, users should not trust or rely on digital wallet completely.

Reference

Smith, C. (2016) 78 Amazing WeChat Statistics. Retrieved from http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/wechat-statistics/2/

Man in Guangdong accused of posing as woman in RMB12,900 WeChat fraud. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news31601.html

Are Digital Wallets Helping or Hurting Your Finances? (2015) Retrieved from https://co-opcreditunions.org/are-digital-wallets-helping-or-hurting-your-finances/