Shopping Cart
The Cashless Revolution
China's Reinvention of Money and the End of America's Domination of Finance and Technology
Description
The startling picture of how China’s revolution in finance and technology is changing both Wall Street and the way individuals manage their personal finances.
The future of finance – the way Wall Street operates and how individuals manage their money – is on the verge of upheaval. And the force underlying the change comes from China, where finance and technology are being merged into a system with consequences that resonate far beyond China’s border. The changes of this global revolution in finance and technology – fintech – will be as powerful as those wrought in social media, retailing and advertising by giants such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, which have overturned how we shop and communicate.
China reinvented money with lightning speed, transforming a backward, antiquated cash-based finance system into one centered on super-apps created by technology giants Alibaba and Tencent. More powerful than anything available outside of China, they allow their billion users to pay, borrow, invest, buy goods and services, travel, chat (and far more) all fused together in one mobile phone application. Think Facebook, Google, Twitter, Goldman Sachs, Amazon, J.P. Morgan Chase all rolled into one app.
We in the West need to understand China’s cashless revolution for reasons ranging from the macroeconomic to issues of personal liberty: The cutting edge of finance is now in China, forcing major financial firms in the United States and the West to figure out how not to be left behind.. China’s cashless revolution is also a harbinger of our future if we let the genie out of the bottle and allow big tech to become big finance. As money goes digital and central banks around the world consider launching digital currencies, we may have both immense convenience and a frightening concentration of power that could violate our privacy, stifle competition, increase financial risk, and give big firms or the government more control over our financial lives. And, once this genie is out of the bottle, the struggle to put it back in may be impossible.
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Praise
“China is profoundly important, fintech is profoundly important, so how they come together will have much to do with how the global financial system plays out. The Cashless Revolution is a very valuable and important summary of the relevant issues.”
—Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor, Harvard University, and former secretary of the treasury“China is at the forefront of digital financial innovation, from mobile payment to online investment, and from digital lending to central bank digital currency. While rapidly transforming the financial structure, Chinese fintech also created immense new challenges for the policymakers. The Cashless Revolution offers an authoritative analysis of this very dynamic new financial sector—what happened, which factors contributed to the dramas, and where it will likely head.”
—Yping Huang, Peking University