Successful Partnership Reduces Stress for Chinese Travellers
It is estimated that over three million visitors from mainland China will come to the US this year, and Alipay, a dominant Chinese online and mobile payments provider with half a billion active users, wants to make it easier for them to get around. In partnership with Verifone, a leader in international payment and commerce solutions, Alipay is now allowing Chinese consumers to pay for American taxis through its mobile wallet function. Last month, 2,100 taxis in Las Vegas began accepting Alipay, and 14,000 taxis in New York City are expected to do so by the end of November.
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“Paying for taxis can be one of the most stressful elements of travelling abroad, particularly if you don’t speak the language,” said Alipay North America president Souheil Badran. “By extending our partnership with Verifone to taxis in New York and Las Vegas, two of the most popular destinations in America for Chinese tourists, we are giving greater confidence to Chinese travelers that they will be able to pay for their taxi ride using the same convenient payment method they use at home, without language barriers.”
Alipay embarked on its strategic partnership with Verifone last year, when they worked together to bring a mobile point-of-sale system that accepts Alipay to selected retailers throughout Europe and North America. Alipay includes an in-app marketing tool that enables targeted campaigns and helps boost brand recognition and sales among customers in China. It was a natural progression to expand the partnership—and further its goal of increasing payment convenience for Chinese travelers—to the transportation sector.
Expansion Plans for Other US Cities and Hong Kong
Alipay and Verifone now have their sights set on taxis in other US cities that are popular with Chinese visitors, which include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Seattle. They are conscious of the competition with popular ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft and frame their marketing approach accordingly: “Enabling Alipay acceptance is yet another example of leveraging our smart transportation platform to drive utilization of traditional taxis which offer the safety of licensed and professional drivers along with predictable pricing,” stated Amos Tamam, Verifone’s Senior Vice President of Global Taxi Systems.
Hong Kong is another new target market for Alipay that tests expansion off the mainland. The company recently announced that it’s teaming up with YedPay and Valoot Technologies, cross-border payment providers based in Hong Kong, so that taxis in the city can settle fares using Alipay and the app’s local version, AlipayHK. WeChat Pay, the Chinese mainland’s popular mobile messaging and payments app that’s approaching a billion users, also plans to get its share of the Hong Kong taxi business. Over 1,000 taxis will except WeChat Pay by the end of 2017.
If these international expansion projects prove fruitful for Alipay and WeChat Pay, it bodes well for additional forays into foreign markets. The number of Chinese who can afford to travel abroad will only increase with time. Badran claims that “the rising middle class in China will reach 600 million consumers by 2022,” so it makes economic sense to ride that wave early.
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