PXPay Plus Co Ltd (全支付), wholly owned by the Taiwanese supermarket chain PX Mart Co (全聯), introduced its online payment app, “PXPay Plus,” in South Korea yesterday, becoming the first Taiwanese operator to launch a cross-border payment app in the market.
PXPay Plus, which launched the online payment app in Japan in January last year, made the announcement earlier yesterday.
Citing statistics compiled by the Tourism Administration, the company said that since the summer of 2022, the number of Taiwanese traveling to South Korea had risen from about 90,000 per month before the COVID-19 pandemic to 129,325 in October last year.
Photo courtesy of PXPay Plus Co Ltd
Also, the South Korean government announced recently that it will extend the temporary exemption period for Taiwanese tourists in connection with the Korean Electronic Travel Authorization (K-ETA) until Dec. 31 this year.
This means Taiwanese traveling to South Korea only need to fill in an arrival card to enter the country, increasing their willingness to visit and potentially driving a surge in the use of the online payments in the country, PXPay Plus said in a statement.
The company is the first Taiwanese electronic payment operator to launch an app in South Korea. Through cooperation with Taiwan’s cross-border payment platform HIVEX as well as South Korean electronic payment platform ZeroPay and financial technology company ICB Co, the cross-border payment service is available at more than 1.9 million payment locations, PXPay Plus said.
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