A hundred apps bloom in China as millions bank on their smartphones

Digital banking, investing and lending have gone mainstream in a huge way in the country

Published Fri, Aug 21, 2015 · 09:50 PM

Shanghai

YOU forgot your wallet, and it's four flights up to your apartment in Shanghai's French Concession. No worries. You've got your smartphone. Open Tencent Holdings' WeChat, the Chinese Twitter on steroids, and tap China's versions of PayPal, E*Trade, Uber, Amazon and TripAdvisor rolled into a single app, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its October issue.

Order and pay for your taxi and then book a restaurant where you'll split the bill electronically with a friend. With a few minutes to spare, transfer money into the mutual fund run by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding. See a poster for a hot new movie? Snap a photo of it and let search engine Baidu find a theatre and buy you tickets for later that evening.