Due to the fact that credit cards never became mainstream, mobile payments have became so common in China that paying with cash is practically unheard-of. Nearly every business or person has a unique QR code that links up with your bank account without the need of personal information.Phone-scannable QR codes also mean that anyone can become a merchant, since you don’t need hardware like a card or chip readers.
The mobile payment market is dominated by two apps, WeChat Pay and AliPay, which have hundreds of millions of active monthly users with more than 15.5 trillion dollars in mobile transactions in 2018 alone.
Tencent and Alibaba’s competing mobile payment apps — WeChat Pay and AliPay, respectively — are used by just about everyone in China, from fancy restaurants and high-end designer boutiques down to street vendors, taxi drivers, street performance and even panhandlers.
How dose it work?
To begin with, Alipay is a simple-to-use app which is compatible with most devices. Luckily for international users, it cooperates with the most widespread financial systems of the world. Therefore, any users of Visa, MasterCard, American Express or various online-wallets can tie their accounts to the given app.
The authorization process begins with inserting a cell phone number. It is used for sending a verification code needed to proceed with entering personal data. The required information is common for most payment systems. Alipay asks the user to fill in their name, surname and credit card number(s). Information security is protected by a password selected by the user.
The app interface is quite intuitive and can be easily used by not tech-savvy consumers. Most functions work via QR-codes scanning. The two hot buttons are “Scan” and “Pay”.
While paying in-store or at some physical facility, the employees will offer you scanning their unique QR-code. Then they can enter a necessary sum and receive your payment. Additional password confirmation is applicable in such cases to avoid unauthorized transactions.
Product flow
The merchant requests for a merchant QR code.
Alipay system receives the request and then generates a merchant QR code.
The merchant QR code information is sent back to the merchant server in the API call response.
The merchant posts the QR Code in the cashier counter.
A customer approaches the cashier to checkout.
The cashier shows the merchant QR Code to the customer.
The customer scans the QR code, input the payment amount, and then confirm to pay.
The Alipay system sends the payment result to the merchant’s server.
At same time, the Alipay system sends a notification to the customer.
Some services provided by Alipay and WeChatpay
Credit card bills payment
Bank account managements
P2P transfer
Bus and train ticket purchase
Food order
Ride hailing
insurance selection
online check-out on most chinese-based websites.
The Alipay app allows users to add their own services provided from different companies to create a more personalised experience.
Ali Smile to Pay
It is no exaggeration to say that you can’t achieve anything without your phone. Ali now is trying to accomplish payment process without using phone. They launched the “smile to pay” service in Hangzhou, the location of the company’s global HQ, where it is being trialled with KFC.
The “smile” payment process doesn’t require a smartphone, assuming that the customer has already signed up for the Alipay app and enabled facial recognition. A 3D camera located at the point-of-sale scans the customer’s face to verify their identity, while there is a phone number verification option for additional security.
