Local shops and restaurants installed with Macau Pass card reading terminals can now apply to upgrade them so that they can also accept payments made by Alipay Wallet mobile application and UnionPay QuickPass cards, Macau Pass’s managing director George Zhang announced on Friday at Macau International Electronics & Global Audiovisual Expo 2015.
“This new service mainly targets the city’s souvenir shops, supermarkets, convenience stores, bakeries and restaurants…It is a service that basically targets small-amount transactions,” Zhang told media after signing a strategic cooperation agreement with China online payment giant Alipay.
“More and more tourists have Alipay Wallet installed in their mobile phones,” Zhang said on Friday. “Starting from today, they can use their Alipay Wallet to shop at local souvenir shops and good restaurants.”
He added that currently a “few dozen” local shops are applying to upgrade their Macau Pass card reading terminals.
But the cooperation between Macau Pass and Alipay covers not only an upgrading of payment terminals.
As the stored-value card issuer announced in late March, Macau Pass plans to launch a mobile payment service that allows stored-value card users to shop on major Chinese online shopping portal Taobao.com.
“It’s very possible in this year residents here can use Macau Pass to pay for other services of Alipay but now there are still some technical and clearance issues to be resolved,” Zhang said, referring to the company’s planned mobile payment service.
(macaunews/macaubusinessdaily)
