E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行) and Alipay (支付寶) yesterday launched a joint cross-border payment service catering to Chinese tourists, who have grown accustomed to using mobile payments over online-to-offline (O2O) platforms.
Alipay, an affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), is the world’s largest mobile payment service provider with 400 million users. It processes more than 120 million transactions daily, accounting for about 80 percent of the market in China.
“In addition to regulations and technology, user behavior is the most important factor affecting the proliferation of new payment methods, and we are happy to make the familiar and convenient service available for Chinese visitors during their stay in Taiwan,” E.Sun Financial president Joseph Huang (黃男州) said at a launch event in Taipei.
“Unlike credit cards or other electronic payments, the new service can be run on smartphones,” Huang said.
“It does not require additional hardware, such as desktop terminals, which should boost consumer and business adoption, especially among night market vendors,” Huang said.
It is predicted that the service is likely to be integrated into point-of-sale (POS) systems at large-scale retailers. Chinese visitors are likely to enjoy slightly more favorable exchange rates using the service compared with banks’ daily rates, he said.
The service is to online today at more than 3,500 stores, including vendors at a number of popular shopping districts and night markets.
The service can also be used where iPass cards (一卡通) are accepted, according to E.Sun Bank.
Huang estimates that the number of stores using the service nationally is likely to exceed 10,000 before the end of next year.
In light of the three decades it took for credit cards to see widespread adoption, the company hopes to see electronic payments account for more than half of the nation’s day-to-day transactions within the next five years, Huang said.
“Once the cross-border O2O infrastructure is established, the service can be rolled out quickly,” he said.
Earlier this month, the banking arms of Yuanta Financial Holding Co (元大金控) and First Financial Holding Co (第一金控) said that they had received regulatory approval to launch their own O2O services in Taiwan.
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