How Taiwan Made Cashless Payments Cute

At a 7-Eleven convenience store successful Taiwan, you tin prime up a 4-inch plushie of Miffy, the bunny quality from the Netherlands, a mini bento container charm implicit with a realistic chickenhearted drumstick, oregon a tiny integrative rotary phone. Produced by iCash Corporation (a 7-Eleven affiliate), these keychains are much than conscionable trinkets: Each contains a contactless spot that connects it to Taiwan’s elaborate stored-value outgo system.

iCash cards, on with those made by competitors similar EasyCard and iPASS, tin beryllium utilized to thrust the subway and buses, arsenic good arsenic to marque purchases astatine convenience stores and different retailers successful Taiwan. The over-the-top branded keychains, which outgo anyplace from $10 to implicit $30, make humble nonstop sales. But their existent worth lies successful their selling power, drafting shoppers deeper into 7-Eleven’s rewards ecosystem and keeping tiny payments wrong its orbit.

Decentralized and Deeply Local

Over the past decade, iCash Corporation and its rivals person turned dozens of mundane products successful Taiwan into limited-edition keychains. Many are miniature versions of snacks and household items disposable astatine 7-Eleven stores, specified arsenic a tin of the sports portion Super Supau, a conduit of Darlie toothpaste, and a cupful of Uni-President’s classical yellowish pudding dessert. Those who similar thing weirder tin get a teeny bundle of toilet tissues, oregon a doll-sized Scotch-Brite room sponge. When I lived successful Taipei for a fewer months past year, I paid for things with a container of crinkle-cut murphy chips.

iCash Corporation has besides licensed Sanrio characters similar Hello Kitty and Cinnamoroll, arsenic good arsenic Pikachu from Pokémon and Stitch from Disney’s Lilo & Stitch. One of my favourite Taiwanese outgo cards isn’t adjacent a keychain astatine all—it’s a integrative mentation of Sailor Moon’s wand made by EasyCard, which (naturally) lights up erstwhile you implicit a transaction.

I person been obsessed with these keychains and novelty toys since I began reporting connected Taiwan respective years ago. They’re the astir delightful broadside effect of the island’s determination toward cashless payments, and they show conscionable however antithetic Taiwan’s integer infrastructure is from China’s. Nearly each user transaction successful China happens done either Alibaba oregon Tencent, 2 tech giants that person a adjacent monopoly connected payments. Whether you’re buying a vessel of noodles astatine a thoroughfare stall oregon a decorator purse successful a Shanghai boutique, you volition astir ever find some an Alipay and WeChat Pay QR code.

In contrast, Taiwan has developed a pluralistic web of NFC cards and mobile wallets layered atop its dense transit strategy and web of convenience stores. The effect is simply a cashless model that is tactile, decentralized, and profoundly local. In Taipei, radical often “tap” to pay, portion successful Beijing, they “scan.” At slightest successful immoderate ways, Taiwan’s exertion is arguably conscionable arsenic blase arsenic China’s. In fact, Alibaba followed the island’s pb past twelvemonth and launched its ain pat outgo method.