www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

US EUROPE AFRICA ASIA 中文
Business / Talking Business

Payment platforms step up overseas expansion

By Zheng Xin (China Daily) Updated: 2016-03-30 08:07

Payment platforms step up overseas expansion

Chinese tourists in Tokyo's Ginza shopping district in Japan during the Lunar New Year Holiday.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Being in the later stages of my pregnancy, my first destination upon arrival in Japan for a holiday with my husband during the Spring Festival was neither a tourist spot nor a hotel.

Instead, my first port of call was a Lawson convenience store at the airport, a savior for those needing extra calories to damp down their hunger from time to time.

Lawson surprises me every time I go to Japan, with its innovative ranges of meals, snacks and sweets. However, what surprised me even more this time was the presence of Alipay in the store, the online payment arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Online payment services such as Alipay are now so popular in China that I, like most of my friends, barely take any cash while shopping, no matter whether in a supermarket for groceries or dropping by a cafe for a latte, but I never imagined that I would enjoy such convenience abroad.

So while queuing up at the checkout, I connected my smartphone to the Internet and completed the payment for my sushi roll and yogurt in just two seconds.

The salesman told me that Alipay had only been made available at the store for a few weeks, but it was already a roaring success with visiting Chinese tourists.

I told him that the reason it was so popular was that tourists would prefer another method of payment because they generally only have large-denomination bank notes upon arrival.

Indeed, he noted that scanning the payment code from a smartphone is also more convenient than taking a 10,000 yen ($88) bill and giving the customers a handful of coins in change.

I searched the Internet while waiting for a taxi, and found out that Alipay mobile payment has been available at Lawson convenience stores in Tokyo's Narita Airport since Jan 25, and would expand to thousands of convenience stores throughout Japan in the near future.

In addition, the online payment platform has also partnered with Japanese department store Abeno Harukas Kintetsu to make payments more convenient to attract more Chinese customers at four of its Osaka department stores.

Japan has become a top travel destination for Chinese tourists in recent years with its matured travel industry, with nearly 5 million Chinese visitors heading to Japan in 2015, twice the number in the year before.

Our peers have also outstripped travelers from other countries in terms of expenditure, with each one spending $2,446 on average.

Eyeing the opportunity, some Chinese payment service providers are already stepping up their expansion abroad, such as UnionPay, which has been available in many Japanese shopping malls and convenience stores as well as e-commerce giants such as Rakuten Inc and Yahoo! Shopping Japan.

Alipay, the rising popular online payment platform, certainly doesn't want to miss out on the action.

The payment tool is now available in more than 50,000 hotels, shopping malls and convenience stores overseas, and tax refunds can also be conducted via Alipay in 24 countries.

Online payment is getting more popular than ever in China, and even my mother does her daily grocery shopping with a scan of the code rather than a handful of cash. So for Alipay, whose presence in China's major cities is gradually stabilizing, expanding its business overseas is definitely one of the main directions for the e-commerce giant.

However, I believe Alipay's expansion overseas has broader horizons than just Chinese people traveling abroad.

With the assistance of the increasing number of Chinese outbound tourists, who will help promote Alipay's brand overseas, it is believed Alipay will gradually bring itself wider acceptance among overseas users, just as UnionPay did abroad by courting the favor of both Chinese abroad and foreign users with its subsidiaries and preferential payment policies.

So the battle for travel-related spending is likely to get fiercer as some payment platforms such as Alipay and UnionPay are also pushing forward their overseas expansion.

Together with its domestic rivals including Tencent Holdings Ltd' WeChat payment, international rivals like PayPal Inc and Apple Inc's Apple Pay will make the battle even fiercer.

The tough battle is likely to end up with more payment subsidiaries and discounts, definitely a favorable result for overseas shopaholics like me.

Hot Topics

Editor's Picks
...
主站蜘蛛池模板: 日本爽快片100色毛片 | 俄罗斯特级毛片 | 99久久综合精品免费 | 国产免费亚洲 | 成人观看视频又黄又免费 | 久久国产欧美另类久久久 | 免费国产不卡午夜福在线 | 一级毛片视屏 | 欧美一级毛片aaaaa | 免费黄色毛片视频 | 超矿碰人人超人人看 | 综合自拍亚洲综合图区美腿丝袜 | 精品一区二区三区五区六区 | 国产上床视频 | 久草久草视频 | 成人男女网18免费看 | 久久久久久久久综合 | 亚洲最大黄网 | 亚州免费视频 | 国产美女白丝袜精品_a不卡 | 成人影院在线免费观看 | 欧美黑大粗硬毛片视频 | 成人黄色在线网站 | 亚洲欧美日韩国产精品久久 | 一区二区三区四区视频在线观看 | 色一伦一情一区二区三区 | 男女性生活网站 | 亚洲国产精品一区二区三区在线观看 | 免费人成黄页网站在线观看 | 日本加勒比视频 | a级毛片免费看 | 免费大片黄手机在线观看 | 欧美三级毛片 | 中文字幕一区二区小泽玛利亚 | 三级视频在线 | 久久青草免费免费91线频观看 | 免费日本视频 | 92精品国产成人观看免费 | 九九久久久久午夜精选 | 精品久久在线 | 青青青免费手机版视频在线观看 |