ComfortDelGro Taxi and Alipay+ announced a deal that enables mobile payments from Malaysia and South Korea, namely the Touch ‘n Go eWallet and Kakao Pay, to be accepted as cashless payment in all its Comfort and CityCab taxis. Users of these mobile wallets can pay for the cab fare simply through the wallet apps without the need to exchange currency.
ComfortDelGro Taxi is Singapore’s largest taxi operator with a fleet of about 9,000 Comfort and CityCab taxis. All ComfortDelGro Taxis support about 20 cashless payment methods.
What is Alipay+’s market reach?
Alipay+ is a suite of cross-border digital payments and marketing solutions designed to enable businesses, especially small and medium-sized businesses, to process a wide range of mobile payment methods and reach 1 billion regional and global consumers, through one-time integration and simple technical adaption. Other leading e-wallets supported by Alipay+ include GCash (Philippines), TrueMoney (Thailand), Alipay HK (Hong Kong SAR, China) etc.
ComfortDelGro Taxi’s CEO, Mr Jackson Chia said of this partnership: “With Singapore reopening its borders, we are looking forward to having tourists come visit us.”
“Our partnership with Alipay+ is a vital one as it allows cashless payment options like Malaysia’s Touch ‘n Go eWallet and soon South Korea’s Kakao Pay available on board ComfortDelGro taxis, making it convenient for Malaysian and South Korean tourists to pay for taxi fares. This saves them the hassle of having to have ready cash in local currency as they are able to pay the fares upfront on their own Touch ‘n Go eWallet or Kakao Pay App.”
What does the deal mean for the tourism industry?
Speaking of the collaboration, Ms Cherry Huang, General Manager, Global Merchant Partnership, South and Southeast Asia, Ant Group said: “Transportation is an essential daily need; taxi of all modes of transportation is even more important especially to travelers.”
“Through the support and collaboration with ComfortDelGro Taxi, we aim to deliver to all users of mobile payments supported by Alipay+ a seamless and smart digital travel experience in Singapore, where they can pay with mobile wallets they are familiar with.”
“This partnership also comes at a great time, as Singapore leads the way in opening up its borders and welcomes tourists back in the city state. We believe this is the perfect moment for tourists to reimagine travel experience post pandemic,” she further commented.
According to the Singapore Tourism Board, the number of visitors to Singapore in the first four months of 2022 has exceeded those of 2021. Malaysia is ranked #3 among the top countries where the tourists are from. South Korea is also a vital source market. In pre-COVID times, South Korea was ranked 9th out of the top 15 visitor source markets in 2019.
As part of a promotional campaign to commemorate this new collaboration, Touch ‘n Go eWallet users can enjoy instant discounts of RM4 or RM6 off their total fare when they pay for their rides using their Touch ‘n Go eWallet App from today until 25 June 2022. The discounts will vary in different weeks and are limited to the first 300 transactions daily.
