Where's all the money going, honey?

Alipay, one of the two most popular domestic e-payment apps, on Monday released data detailing how much money every user of the app had spent and how the money was spent in the year gone by.

"I cannot believe I have spent all that money!" That was perhaps the most uttered phrase on Monday, as many found out that their total spending in the past year far exceeded their expectations.

But that's a given with mobile payments in which all one does is scan a QR code or flash a QR code for the shop owner to scan, not touching money even once during the entire process.

Mobile payments actually give users an illusory feeling about money. Some even argue that it encourages people to spend more without ever knowing about it. But even if it does then it is not necessarily a bad thing.

A boost in consumption will inject new vitality into the economy. After all, consumption is to the economy what blood is to a human body. Increased consumption can help factories make more money and, in turn, manufacture more goods and increase productivity. A stable economy requires two well-performing engines, namely production and consumption.

Actually, the fact that people spent more money than they expected means they are not short of money. Some even joke that sometimes one does not even need to know the exact price of things; one just scans the QR code. Only those with a loose budget can buy without knowing the price.

Of course, over consumption might not be good, but we have not reached that stage yet. Alipay's information is limited to its users, but the National Bureau of Statistics has data about the first half of 2019, in which the average consumption per person was 10,330 yuan ($1,487.57), much lower than that in developed countries such as the United States.

China has a long way to go before it can call itself a high-income economy.