Alipay Launches O2O Payment in Taiwan

Alipay, China’s leading electronic payment platform, launched its cross-border onlineto-offline (O2O) services to cover Taiwan in the fourth quarter, allowing Alipay users to make purchases using their Alipay accounts on the island, Ant Financial, Alipay’s operator, announced at the end of October.

Alipay is the first third-party payment provider to receive approval for the use of the QR code scanning service in Taiwan in cooperation with a local bank, E.SUN. The new payment service is expected to apply to over 3,000 merchants by the end of 2015, including department stores, supermarkets, souvenir shops, and business districts.

With the launch of this service, Alipay users no longer need to convert RMB into New Taiwan dollars or take cash with them. They are able to find merchant introduction and exclusive discount information on the Taiwan page of the Alipay mobile app’s travel section.

In recent years, the number of mainland tourists to Taiwan has surged. Data from Taiwan’s tourism department show that mainland tourists made 3.98 million visits to Taiwan in 2014, 11 times more than in 2008.

Alipay currently dominates China’s mainland third-party payment market, accounting for nearly 80 percent of the market based on transaction value. On the Chinese mainland, Alipay is connected to over 200,000 offline merchants and 900,000 taxis and car rental firms. In overseas markets, about 50,000 merchants accept Alipay payment.