Cashless China: shoppers to spend $15t on their phones this year

Many people in China find that they barely ever touch coins or banknotes these days. That’s because the nation – which invented paper money around 2,800 years ago, by the way – has moved quickly in the past half decade toward being a cashless society, with people using their phones to make payments.

Here’s the scene right now, complete with the latest data for mid-2017:

Artwork by Matahari Indonesia.