Mobile Payments Facilitate Higher Holiday Consumpt

Mobile Payments Facilitate Higher Holiday Consumption in China

Industry experts say China’s various mobile payment systems are facilitating higher rates of holiday consumption in the east Asian country. Although mobile money has been around for well over a decade, the technology reached the mainstream within the past couple of years. The coronavirus pandemic was instrumental in increasing the global popularity of these services because it discouraged handling physical cash.

China was quick to jump onto the bandwagon and now has some of the most dominant mobile-payment platforms in the world. The majority of these payment options have also been availed to foreigners, allowing them to link up their local mobile wallets with Chinese services such as Alipay for more seamless financial transactions. Industry experts note that these payment options contributed to a new wave of tourist-related consumption during the recently concluded National Day holiday.

Data from Alipay indicates that more international travelers are opting to use mobile money options to cover their financial transactions whenever they travel through the country. Inbound traveler spending on Alipay alone increased by 120% year-over-year through the weeklong holiday’s initial four days. Tourists from more than 10 nations that gained visa-free access to the country since 2023 were especially responsible for the surge in mobile-money transactions, Alipay notes, and their use of the mobile-money platform increased by nearly three times year-on-year.

With a growing number of inbound travelers choosing to transact through mobile-money platforms rather than physical money, businesses in China are working hard to capitalize on the influx of foreign customers. On Alipay, China’s largest mobile-money services platform, the number of merchants using the service for international customers doubled during the holiday’s first four days compared to the same period last year.

Most of the inbound travelers with Alipay used the platform to pay for ride hailing, food delivery, train and flight bookings, and bike-sharing services. According to Ouyang Rihui, assistant dean of the China Center for Internet Economy Research at the Central University of Finance and Economics, convenient mobile payments coupled with flight recovery and visa-free access have fueled a surge of tourism into China. Rihui said the rise in inbound tourism will stimulate domestic consumption and vitalize the global tourism sector.

Chinese authorities have also noticed the benefits of adopting mobile money and are also keen on making the services more accessible to businesses. The State Administration for Market Regulation and the National Data Administration recently announced a pilot program that would help business owners in eight cities adopt mobile money to stimulate further mobile money use by foreigners.

This surge in the use of mobile-payment platforms offers enterprises such as FingerMotion Inc. (NASDAQ: FNGR) an opportunity to deepen their penetration of the market.

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