The articles say complaints have grown every year. About 30 a day now.
Obviously a corrupt system and the bureaucrats and politicians don't care because they get driven around in chauffeured cars, according to some of the commenters in the SCMP articles.
Sure with 40,000 drivers and over 18,000 taxis, it's only takes 10% misbehaving drivers, maybe even less, to generate thousands of formal complaints a year and several times as many online complaints.
Clearly the HK govt. politics are anti-competitive. Working HKers express preference for the reliability, transparency and cleanliness of Uber but they're not legally allowed to use Uber. Or rather those Uber drivers are not allowed to operate.
Look at the eTaxi app. that they touted. One innovation is suppose to be being allowed to pay with Octopus cards, another antiquated, anti-competitive system? But presumably not credit cards or mobile wallets. Yes I know HK is not a credit card culture. But that's an excuse.
MTR alone can greatly increase the use of NFC payments in general but for whoever reason, they want to protect Octopus.
Still mobile wallets, led by Apple Pay, are growing in use in HK, even though HK lags behind China and Singapore in adoption:
Despite growing acceptance, mobile and electronic payments services adoption in Hong Kong remains timid when compared with the likes of China and Singapore. One of the main reasons, according to the South China Morning Post, is that the city’s seven million residents rely heavily on the city’s first payments option, the contactless Octopus card.
Launched in 1997, the Octopus card can be used to pay fares on the city’s transport network of buses, ferries and trams, as well as the Mass Transit Railway (MTR). It is also accepted at several merchants as payment for goods and services, including convenience stores and supermarkets. The card system claims to cover 99% of the city’s population.
“Despite the 20 years that Octopus has been used in Hong Kong, it took Apple Pay and its competitors to actually bring mobile payments into the mainstream in the city,” Paul Haswell told the South China Morning Post.
“The number of competing mobile payment platforms in Hong Kong, combined with a reluctance by some parts of society to adopt these systems, means we’re at least five to ten years away from being a cashless city.”
http://fintechnews.hk/8457/mobilepay...ng-kong-study/
Seems like too much inertia or resistance to change, some of which is owing to preserving certain protected business interests. Certainly doesn't accord with the perception of HK as being forged by meritocratic competition.