[quote] Why would other countries not like to use mobile payment service?[/quote]
The simple answer, is that in most Western countries, we value privacy over convenience. Quite clearly, you've never heard of the 'sesame' credit scheme of the government's 'social credit' scheme.
Zhima credit is a personal credit rating associated with Alipay. Users are given a score between 350 (low) and 950 (high), and the scheme rewards those with "good" scores and makes life more difficult for those deemed to have "bad" scores. In essence, this creates a digital underclass.
The system is integrated with China's governmental blacklist. One can be banned from traveling, only allowed to book the lowest classes of seats on trains, busses, airplanes, be unable to buy certain goods and services, and be ineligible for mortgages/loans etc.
More worryingly, your score is affected by the company you keep. If you socialise/mix exclusively with those who have high scores, your fortune in life increases too. You can live in better areas, get streamlined visas for foreign travel, receive low interest loans, be allowed to purchase items others cannot etc.
These social credit scores analyze data from social media (Weibo etc), online shopping, payment apps, geolocation data, cellphone data and more to create a 'good citizen' score. In order to find out how 'good' you are the score can take into account who your friends are, whether you pay bills on time, and even how long you spend reading the end-user agreements/TOS.
Social credit scoring is one of the factors which has helped China become the world leader in fintech adoption. The local fintech explosion was ignited by a unique landscape, including highly developed e-commerce and online payments, regulatory support, and, as always, the possibility of making a lot of money.
But what really pushed fintech into a boom was the fact that traditional banks were simply not lending money to individuals because they lacked a reliable way to assess credit scores—only 25% of the Chinese population have a credit history.
Although it was created as a tool for giving more access to credit for those who need it, be it for education, starting a business or buying the newest iPhone, social credit scoring bring its own set of issues connected to big data.
The obvious issue is security. Even if we rule out hackers, there are other concerns to consider when it comes to our valuable data. Many fintech companies do not own data centers, they rent out cloud services from other companies we know nothing about or in countries that have weaker privacy regulation.
Tests have also proven that data and algorithms are not neutral, they reflect our own biases. These tools may perpetuate and intensify existing biases by scoring consumers on the basis of race, gender, religion, politics and other factors. And even when the algorithms aren’t biased there is a possibility we can make them biased in our favor: people online are already sharing tips on tweaking FICO and Sesame scores.
Lastly, social credit scoring is far from transparent. From a user’s perspective, it is difficult to gauge whether your score went lower because you bragged how you got “wasted” last Friday online or because you liked “Fully automated luxury gay space communism” on Facebook.
In Chinese online space where the Chinese government is even more involved, this question gets even more difficult.
In most Western nations, we associate government data collection with passive surveillance and regard the voluntary surrender of huge amounts of personal information to commercial entities as some other kind of thing, however in China there generally is no comprehension that such a distinction exists.
If you live in the West, you are by now accustomed to relinquishing your data to corporations. Credit card companies know when you run up bar tabs or buy sex toys. Facebook knows if you like Tasty cooking videos or Breitbart News. Uber knows where you go and how you behave en route. But Alipay knows all of these things about its users and more. It knows who you hang out with, how often, where you go, what you do, how much money you spend etc etc.
Now, couple all of this with the fact China is the world leader in facial recognition technology. Already, cameras on the street can 'find' you, display your name, age, ID card number and presumably any other information the authorities (or now seemingly private companies) have on you. Just last week the PSB announced they were rolling out new 'sunglasses' to the police which incorporate facial recognition technology...
None of this is science-fiction. It is happening now. In 2014, the State Council, China’s governing cabinet, publicly called for the establishment of a nationwide tracking system to rate the reputations of individuals, businesses, and even government officials. The aim is for every Chinese citizen to be trailed by a file compiling data from public and private sources by 2020, and for those files to be searchable by fingerprints and other biometric characteristics. The State Council calls it a “credit system that covers the whole society.”
For the Chinese Communist Party, social credit is an attempt at a softer, more invisible authoritarianism. The goal is to nudge people toward behaviors ranging from energy conservation to obedience to the Party. The government wants to preempt instability that might threaten the party. That’s why social credit ideally requires both coercive aspects and nicer aspects, like providing social services and solving real problems. It’s all under the same Orwellian umbrella.
The State Council has signaled that under the national social credit system people will be penalized for the crime of spreading online rumors, among other offenses, and that those deemed “seriously untrustworthy” can expect to receive substandard services. Ant Financial appears to be aiming for a society divided along moral lines as well. Zhima Credit states that the system “will ensure that the bad people in society don’t have a place to go, while good people can move freely and without obstruction.”
But here's the question.
Who decides this?
An algorithm?
And therein lies the answer to your question.
We don't have it, because we are free societies.