Disconnected Platforms, Networked Lives. Social bridging across fragmented payment systems in China

Abstract

Money is increasingly accessed through multifunctional digital platforms via mobile payment and banking apps that offer various financial services, several of which integrate social media connectivity. In China, Alipay and WeChat Pay handle billions of transactions annually to the extent that physical cards and cash are rarely carried or used. These platforms have been described as ‘walled gardens’ because financial transfers cannot be made directly between them. While Alipay and WeChat Pay share similar transactional components, they differ in their financial products, constraints, interdependencies, and social media integrations, and each offers different interactional possibilities for users to meet their everyday financial needs. We examine how users navigate infrastructural payment problems, perform financial management across different platforms and accounts, deal with ‘trouble’ in making payments, and weave their social and financial lives across platforms to create interoperability between these otherwise disconnected services. Our analysis suggests these apps do not just initiate, record and track payments, but are actively configured by users through interconnected social, transactional, and money-management practices, and that user interactions and digital payment practices are shaped by complex socio-financial arrangements. We discuss the findings, drawing implications for designing social-financial interactions in bridging disconnected services.