Local electronic payment (e-payment) platform mPay will expand its activities beyond Macau to more than 40 countries, platform owner Macau Pass S.A. (Macau Pass) announced in a statement yesterday.
According to the statement, the local platform will join with Alipay+ to expand its coverage to more than 40 countries, something that will likely happen either by September or between October and December next year.
Among the countries newly covered by the partnership will be the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, as well as the 24 countries that compose the European Economic Area (being all European Union countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway).
Also included will be countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Qatar, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, and the United States of America.
Crucially, this cross-border payment function is only applicable to mPay users that are Macau residents and who have acquired a user status on the mobile app of JR (Junior), Intermediate-3A, and Advanced-3B levels.
According to Macau Pass, payments abroad will be completed by simply switching the Alipay+ overseas payment code on mPay when seeing the Alipay+ logo at merchants in these countries.
Regarding the expansion, the Chairman and CEO of Macau Pass, Sun Ho, said that following the changes in consumer culture as well as modern technology advancements, the demand for electronic payments, especially cross-border mobile payments, is growing rapidly.
“As one of the leading mobile payment e-wallets in Macau, mPay and Alipay+, which have launched a suite of innovative digital cross-border solutions, strive to create a smart e-wallet that allows Macau residents to travel globally. This could also solve the issues they encounter with payment while traveling overseas, thus improving travelers’ payment and shopping experience.”
The same official also noted that “when international payment services give consumers a fine global travel consumption experience, it [brings] more cross-border businesses and tourism growth opportunities for global merchants.”
The Macau Pass CEO said that mPay “will continue to expand electronic payment, lifestyle services, and marketing technology services to develop more open and diversified intelligent payment business scenarios.”
With the optimization of the entry-exit management policy of the Macau SAR government, the increase in searches for outbound flights and accommodation in overseas countries indicates that the outbound travel demand of Macau residents continues to recover in 2023, and cross-border consumption is expected to surge.
Macau Pass was acquired back in late March 2022 by AGTech Holdings, an affiliate of mainland tech giant Alibaba, for HKD778 million. With this move, several changes have been promoted to the e-payment platform which started to benefit from a wider range of services provided through the Alipay system.
