Who’s winning the sprint to become a financial services super app: At Money20/20 USA, Insider Intelligence gave financial services executives an advance look at our upcoming matrix compiling some of the industry’s most comprehensive data about global financial services super apps.

The government is pushing for a sharper divide between Alipay and Ant Group’s loan business by making the latter spin off the division—which includes short-term loan product Jiebei and virtual credit card Huabei—into a standalone app.

China continues to lead the world in all things ecommerce, including innovation. Social commerce livestreaming is just one of many new stories for 2021 and beyond.

The digital divide has widened, particularly over the past year, and left seniors worldwide in the lurch. This issue takes on added urgency in China, where gender imbalance, delayed marriage, and a declining birthrate only exacerbate the rapid aging of its population. In November, the government urged tech companies to cater to the elderly, and China’s digital giants are now tapping into the so-called silver market.

The rest of the world is waking up to the potential of shoppable livestreams, but it’s old news to China’s short-form video players and ecommerce platforms. Short-video leaders Douyin (TikTok’s sister app) and Kuaishou (known outside of China as Kwai) have been expanding their social commerce operations, not just to sell products, but to provide services and other forms of content as well.

China’s Singles’ Day is no longer just a discount shopping event, as participating digital giants are now leveraging livestreams, new product launches, and novel technologies to enhance customer engagement and the buying experience.

In 2019, we estimate that 577.4 million people in China made a purchase via proximity mobile payment within a six-month period. Those users account for 49.6% of the country’s population. Next year, more than half of the population will utilize this payment method, with that figure rising to 60.5% in 2023.

Consumers in China, whether buying at retail outlets or street stalls, are using proximity mobile payments—largely supported by QR codes—and reducing their dependency on cash.

The global payment market will hit a major milestone in 2020: 1.06 billion people are expected to make a proximity mobile payment. But even as countries like China and Sweden take steps toward a cashless society, most of the world will still rely on cash and cards.

eMarketer vice president of forecasting Monica Peart discusses our advertising estimates for Alibaba and details on the Chinese ecommerce giant’s new retail initiative.

This year, we expect China’s total retail ecommerce sales will grow more than 30%, reaching nearly $2 trillion—the highest-grossing retail ecommerce market worldwide, according to our latest forecast. Behind China, the US retail ecommerce market will reach $600.63 billion in sales, growing nearly 15% year over year.

The 2018 holiday season brought big rises in digital sales in Western Europe. The online grocery sector also experienced growth last year. Meanwhile, Amazon and Alibaba have both set their sights on major gains in the region.

Amazon and Alibaba continue to expand into Western Europe—Amazon with hopes of capturing a greater European consumer base, and Alibaba selling luxury European goods to its tens of millions of consumers in China.

Of the 938.2 million proximity mobile payment users worldwide, over two-thirds reside in China and India. Consumer adoption is still in its early days for most markets, but there will be fast growth in retailer support and usage over the next few years.

China’s fast-paced retail ecommerce growth hasn’t spelled doom for physical stores. Rather, brick-and-mortar is undergoing a transformation of its own, underlined by an infusion of technology and the growing integration between online and offline.

In China, mobile payments have made large inroads thanks to rapid smartphone adoption and the absence of alternative payment methods.

With few well-known tourist attractions, Finland may seem like an unlikely travel destination. But tourism from China—and thus retail spending—is soaring. Finnair's Henrik Balk and Finavia's Elena Stenholm explain why.