Shanghai experienced a remarkable surge in mobile payment transactions made by international visitors in the final quarter of 2023, marking a staggering 13-fold increase compared to the first quarter, according to data released by the online payment platform Alipay on March 19.

The data also revealed that dining, transportation, and supermarkets stood as the top three scenarios for these transactions.

Alipay attributed this surge, which has positioned Shanghai as a premier destination for inbound tourist mobile payments, to a substantial rise in payments using overseas bank cards linked to domestic platforms as well as transactions facilitated by international e-wallets.

Presently, China accepts direct payments from 10 overseas electronic wallets, including AlipayHK (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China), Touch'n Go eWallet (Malaysia), and Kakao Pay (South Korea). According to Alipay's data, the top three e-wallets used in Shanghai are AlipayHK, Touch'n Go eWallet, and TrueMoney (Thailand).

To enhance the experience for international users, Alipay has recently expanded its language translation services that cover a total of 16 languages, including French, German, Spanish, Malay, Arabic, and Italian, as well as Chinese and English. Furthermore, the app raised the transaction limits for overseas users, lifting the single transaction limit from $1,000 to $5,000 and the annual transaction limit from $10,000 to $50,000.

"We will continue to enhance payment convenience for international individuals and further expand our service offerings," stated Li Shuo, director of cross-border offline business of Alipay China.

Source: chinanews.com