Comment by jhugo
2 years ago
This is how it works in a lot of places, including everywhere in China and parts of south east Asia. The merchant’s device displays a QR code, which you scan with your phone. The details of the transaction are shown on your screen, and you can select things like where the money should come from, sometimes discounts etc, and then tap to complete the transaction.
so that means that all payment methods must be stored on your phone? How is that any safer than Apple Pay or PayPal?
In the case of Bharat QR (India) or QRIS (Indonesia), it's just a standard which various payment methods implement. So you can choose to scan the QR with the app of the bank that you want to pay from, or with a mobile wallet app (those wallets themselves usually being able to be linked to bank accounts, cards, etc).
In the case of Alipay and WeChat Pay (China), the QR codes are proprietary to the mobile wallet app, but both also support connecting the wallet to bank accounts and cards.
When using a card the safety characteristics are quite similar to Apple Pay or PayPal: the card details are neither stored on your phone nor transferred to the merchant. But in these markets few people use cards; they either pay directly from their bank account using these QR systems, or they keep a balance in a mobile wallet and pay from that.