Recently, mobile payment has been introduced in the Netherlands through Apple Pay. Consumers in possession of a bank card from a few banks have the possibility to link their card with their Apple ID account, which they are then able to use to make payments with their smartphone by means of a NFC-chip. In China, on the other hand, bank cards and other cards have already disappeared from people’s wallet for some time now. Today, they can pay for practically everything via their smartphones. There are two market leaders regarding mobile payment, namely Alipay and WeChat Pay. These applications are used by hundreds of millions of Chinese people every day and are much more extensive and compact than for instance PayPal, which is used in Western countries (Beuzekamp, 2018).
To be able to use Alipay, users first must request a Chinese bank account, which should be linked to their Alipay account. Every user gets an unique QR code within the application, which can be scanned at any checkout. During the checkout, the money will be directly withdrawn from their bank account, as it is linked to each other. This provides convenience for consumers, since they no longer have to carry around a wallet. Moreover, Alipay contains several other functions than simply payment. For instance, users can order a meal, taxi, shared bike, flight, train ticket and lots more. In addition, they can instantaneously transfer money to each other without any extra costs or payment processing times (Chinesewebshop, 2017).
Every year, around 20 million Chinese tourists visit Europe. In order to respond to Chinese consumers in the European market, more companies should consider implementing Alipay. Chinese people can use their trusted payment service, which can incline more tourists to travel to and make purchases in Europe. Turnover from companies will gradually increase due to the opportunity of Alipay (Bruinsma, 2018). What do you think? Is it sensible to further bring Alipay to Europe in order to provide the same convenience as in China?
Beuzekamp, N. (2018). Alternatieve betaalvormen: Alipay en WeChat Pay [Online]. Available at: https://www.sepay.nl/blog/alternatieve-betaalvormen-alipay-wechat-pay.
Bruinsma, G. (2018). Chinees betaalplatform Alipay gaat ‘winnen’ van iDeal [Online]. Available at: https://www.ad.nl/economie/chinees-betaalplatform-alipay-gaat-winnen-van-ideal~a969bc56/.
Chinesewebshop. (2017). Alipay [Online]. Available at: https://www.chinesewebshop.net/alipay/.
