Alipay expands card acceptance for tourist custom

Alipay, Ant Group’s digital payment service, has updated its app to support card purchases through Visa, Mastercard and others as it seeks to service tourists.

Why card acceptance matters

China is a leader in digital payments, with around 85% penetration among mobile internet users. Alipay and WeChat Pay are the two main providers, but required users to have a local bank account until only recently.

With the country’s borders reopened to tourists since March, the app will smooth the payment process between visitors and the merchants they buy from on their holidays as Chinese society becomes increasingly cashless. Should it help to ease barriers to tourists spending money, this is good news for brands in China.

What’s going on

Following Tencent’s WeChat upgrade in July, Alipay has taken a similar step, according to the South China Morning Post.

• The move forms part of a wider effort to boost tourist spending and to help elderly shoppers engage in the new technology. It comes as some estimates put foreign tourism to China at around 20% of pre-pandemic levels, Time reports.
• While broader geopolitical concerns and the perception of China’s harsh enforcement of Covid-era restrictions have been obstacles for tourism, digital payments and their sheer ubiquity have presented an insurmountable barrier for many people.

Sourced from SCMP, Statista, Time, WeChat, WARC