Will the coronavirus accelerate UK retailers’ digital currency efforts?

Why did McDonald’s close its UK restaurants amid the coronavirus outbreak but keep them open in China?

It’s because the latter went straight from cash to having an advanced digital economy, where payments are contactless through Alipay and WeChat Pay and QR codes, argues crypto advocate Erica Stanford.

In a LinkedIn post, the founder of the Crypto Curry Club says: “People could simply order and pay via their mobiles, and be given a time to pick up their order. In China, these apps have more data over the population than the banks or government.”

The UK, on the other hand, still has a long way to go en route to a digital economy. “Maybe this is the one thing we needed to accelerate a lot of our retailers to look at nice innovations such as digital currencies or crypto rewards and loyalty incentives?” she writes.

“The more data countries have on their citizens' payments, the faster they will advance, as well as in some countries destroy any last shreds of human rights or freedom such as booking train tickets, for example. Will be interesting where the UK takes this,” Stanford concludes.

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