Facilitating payments by six non-local QR payment platforms, Ant Group is confident that payments made by visitors to Macau will become easier.
Ant Group is the parent company and service facilitator of Chinese QR payment platform AliPay. AliPay+, a sideline product, helps facilitate cross-border transactions.
The six external payment platforms are AliPay in mainland China, AliPay HK, KakaoPay from South Korea, Gcash from the Philippines, Touch ‘N Go from Malaysia and True Money from Thailand.
Users of these platforms, when in Macau, can make seamless payments (charged in their home currency and without applicable surcharges), provided that the relevant merchants use the MPay machine equipped with AliPay+ payment functions.
Yesterday, on the sidelines of a business event, an Ant Group spokesperson refrained from making comment on how many of these transactions in Macau had been logged.
The spokesperson attributed the lack of data to the fact that the service was only launched during the Hangzhou Asian Games back in September and October, implying that this period was too short to gather such data.
Despite the lack of data, the spokesperson reiterated that AliPay is one of the most popular QR payment methods in Macau among visitors from mainland China. The payment platform, in terms of popularity in mainland China, is the same as that of WeChat Pay. Another platform, which is far less popular, is operated by Chinese payment card brand UnionPay.
While recapping that there are 4 million active AliPay HK users, the spokesperson emphasized that visitors from Hong Kong are the second most frequent users of the platform in Macau.
The current Macau government has reiterated the importance of foreign visitors and made attracting these visitors a key policy in the coming year. When asked how AliPay will promote the availability of payment options using the aforementioned external payment platforms, the spokesperson explained that she was not in a position to comment.
The spokesperson added that foreign visitors can add their credit cards to the AliPay mainland China platform to make payments during their visits to the country. However, similar options are not available in the Hong Kong and Macau versions of the payment platform.
Meanwhile, Venetia Lee, the group’s general manager of international business in Greater China, said during her speech that users of the six external payment platforms can enjoy the convenience of making payments in Macau using their home currency without any surcharge.
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