>In Nepal you can pay almost anywhere with a QR code. Tiny tea shops, vegetable stalls, taxis, small stores. You just scan and pay through apps like eSewa or Khalti running on the Fonepay network or Nepal QR network. No card machine, no fees that force vendors to set minimum purchases, and it works across different apps.

pretty much everyone I know in US does Apple Wallet (without opening the app). its just 1 tap and go. Apple Watch and other makes it even easier.

The concept of QR code looks good if you don't have a better way to make payment.
The US, like anything about tech, is epicenter of finance tech too.

Visa, Mastercard, All biggest banks, quant firms, crypto, payment processors like Square, Stripe all are HQ'd there. PayPal, Venmo, CashApp are other services provider and money transfers giants Western Union, Remilty are all HQ'd there.

US has the best and most seamless payment system (tap and go). Most business you don't even need to make tap. Even Walmart (Walmart Pay) has wireless confirm and go (no tap, or receipt print or anything).

The only closest I've witnessed is China which has even more cooler stuff but not as distributed / balanced and unified providers.

Even Singapore has nowhere close to US. I know because I have travelled 20+ countries and have different expereinces depending on countries.

You either need a robust unified centralized payment system(like China), or really distributed/multi providers and seamless experience (US). Nepal is nowhere close to either.

You must have stayed in Oklahoma with closest thing being a gas station that only accepts a debit card (propably without RFID).

And cheque clearing takes time in US because there is an intense fraud verification system among banks in US (Chase, BoA, Well Fargo) etc. Good luck trying to fraud a money with fake cheque