China's central bank on Monday warned that rejecting cash as a form of payment was illegal, saying that such practices could eventually could cause the loss of confidence in physical money and was unfair to those not accustomed to electronic payments.
Its comments, made in a post on its official WeChat account, come as electronic payments via Alibaba Group's Alipay or Tencent Holdings's WeChat have become increasingly popular in China where they are accepted on platforms such as public transport and at retailers like coffee shops.