(1 August 2017 – Europe) Ingenico Group, a global payment services provider headquartered in Paris, has signed an agreement with Alibaba payment arm, Alipay, enabling Chinese tourists to pay with their favourite digital wallet in European stores.
Following an initial agreement in August last year, for online and in-store payments, Ingenico set up a turnkey solution for the in-store acceptance of Alipay wallets, China's largest mobile wallet with over 520 million active users, on its POS, offering the growing number of Chinese travellers the same user experience at the checkout as they are used to at home.
According to the French firm, the platform allows for automatic boarding and activation of merchants and provides transaction reconciliation as well as access to advanced customer data on a web portal.
The solution is based on the recognition of the Alipay QR-code displayed on the customer's smartphone by the POS (transaction scan) or the reverse (merchant scan). This code includes information for the secure management of the transaction by the Ingenico terminal: it identifies the wallet and is specific to each transaction. The integration of Alipay payment method is fully compatible with all payment applications already installed on the POS, whatever the country, language or currency.
“With millions of Chinese tourists expected to visit Europe in the coming years, European merchants are eager to provide them with the best services and user experience, including Alipay acceptance,” said Luciano Cavazzana, SVP EMEA – Banks & Acquirers Business Unit, Ingenico Group.
“Ingenico is delighted to be the first provider of a turnkey solution for Alipay acceptance, easy to implement for banks and acquirers. This solution enables them to improve their offer to merchants, constantly trying to expand their payment method portfolio. This also confirms our design capabilities and the versatility of our terminals, for the benefit of all players in the payment ecosystem,” he said
“Ingenico's new solution adds an easy go-to-solution for any acquirers who are Ingenico's clients to start accepting Alipay,” said Rita Liu, Head of Alipay EMEA.
“Europe is always the ideal destination for high-income Chinese tourists. We are expecting more acquirers and merchants to join Ant Financial's ecosystem to bring better cashless experience to Chinese customers.”