As it happens, Ant and Alibaba were critical to spreading the gospel of the QR code. With low credit-card adoption in China, Ma saw an opportunity to leverage the comparatively common mobile phone as a means of transaction. Today, QR code scanning accounts for the majority of digital payments in the country.

Because of this hit, big banks began charging and raising overdraft fees. For a consumer who doesn’t keep a balance, overdrafts became so expensive that it simply didn’t make sense to keep an account with a bank that would charge those. This created two opportunities: 1. Products like Dave, Status, Bridget and Earnin have emerged to provide... See more