As an American ignorant of Alipay/WeChat, I don't understand why they are perceived to be more convenient/advanced than the credit card system here. I tap my phone/card to pay at the register, enter the card number once for utilities in a webpage, that pretty low friction.
For paying at stores, I also just use credit cars (Apple Pay), it’s indeed more convenient.
For utilities, I open the app, check if I have a bill and click “pay”. It’s nice to be able to pay all utilities from one app, instead of having to log in to different sites and enter my details.
But I think one of the main things is also that you can connect it to your bank account, so it essentially becomes what a debit card is.
