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Feb 20, 2018
Hong Kong Economic Journal Excerpt
Mobile payment war heats up in Hong Kong

Alipay and WeChat Pay, China’s big two mobile payment giants, both entered the Hong Kong market last year, triggering a mobile payment war among major operators.

To fend off the competition, local e-payment leader Octopus Cards joined hands with Samsung Electronics to launch Smart Octopus. Backed by an attractive promotional offer and the vast user base of the mobile phone brand, the venture is said to have been quite successful.

HSBC, meanwhile, launched a mobile payment app PayMe, which enable users to send money instantly to anyone for free.

Union Pay has also joined the game. To vie for customers, it set up a booth at the Lunar New Year Fair in Victoria Park to promote its Quick Pass service.

Other players have also made use of the festival to boost public awareness about their payment platforms.

 

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Aug 16, 2018
Digital payment firms fight for Hong Kong market
Excerpt

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong’s shopping districts are well known for their fierce competition. Now, a new battleground is forming as digital payments firms fight for retailers and shoppers.

Chinese tech giants like Tencent and Alibaba are bringing their payment platforms to a city that has long thrived on cash and credit cards, putting them into competition with the likes of Google, Apple and Samsung, as well as local players like HSBC.

“Hong Kong is probably a little behind other places when it comes to digital payments, so we are seeing a rush to establish a first mover advantage,” said Fergus Gordon, who leads Accenture’s Asia-Pacific banking practice.

The city has become an important testing ground for Tencent’s WeChat Pay, and Alibaba’s Alipay, dominant rivals in mainland China, as they look to establish themselves overseas.

AlipayHK, a joint venture between Ant Financial , Alibaba’s payments arm, and the Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison, says the number of its users have jumped 50 percent to 1.5 million since March.

WeChat Pay does not disclose its user numbers in Hong Kong.

Visa says that as of last April, one in 10 Visa payments in Hong Kong were made using ApplePay, SamsungPay or GooglePay, doubling from a year earlier. HSBC said in July that it reached one million users for its peer-to-peer payments app PayMe.

Hong Kong has been slow to embrace mobile payments partly because of the ubiquity of Octopus, a once ground-breaking stored-value card that is accepted by 22,000 businesses like convenience stores and small restaurants, and is widely used on public transport.

Despite the growth of mobile payments, current spending habits will be hard to change.

A device to accept digital payment is installed at a convenience store in Hong Kong, China July 30, 2018. REUTERS/Bobby Yip
A Hong Kong Productivity Council survey published in July found that the most widely used mobile payment methods were Alipay and WeChat Pay, but they were used by just 22 percent and 19 percent of respondents respectively.

 

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Nov 16, 2018
Hong Kong Economic Journal Excerpt
AlipayHK to launch QR code payment for MTR by mid-2020

Hong Kong’s MTR Corp. is introducing QR code-based payments for travelling on the city’s railway and metro system, with AlipayHK selected as the service provider for an initial period.

According to an agreement signed between AlipayHK and MTR, QR code readers will be installed at entry gates at 91 MTR stations in Hong Kong by mid-2020.

The will give commuters the option of entering MTR stations by scanning the QR code on their smartphones via AlipayHK mobile app.

AlipayHK says the transaction via its QR code payments will be completed in under 0.4 seconds, comparable to that of Octopus, the city’s ubiquitous stored-value card.

In addition, AlipayHK’s QR code solution will support “dual offline” solution, so even if internet service is poor or lacking, transactions can be completed to ensure smooth journeys.

AlipayHK is a joint venture between Alibaba’s payments arm Ant Financial, and Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison (00001.HK), which is owned by billionaire Li Ka-shing.

 

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Thanks to mahjong and poker, HSBC’s e-wallet hits new milestone on pandemic-driven surge in online payments
South China Morning Post Excerpt
May 25, 2020

HSBC’s digital payment platform PayMe is enjoying a surge in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic, hitting a new milestone since its introduction in 2017, as consumers go online to pay for everything from face masks to virtual social games.

Its users reached the 2 million landmark last week, the lender said, representing a 25 per cent jump from a year earlier. The increase, together with 10 other e-wallets in the city, helped underpin a three-fold surge in transactions through the faster payment system (FPS) maintained by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA).

“We have seen above-average growth in registration and more active usage of PayMe over these few months of Covid-19 pandemic,” Kerry Wong Chu Po-yin, managing director and head of PayMe, said in an interview. “The increase is seen in settling of bills, including those related to online social games such as mahjong and poker.”

More : HSBC’s PayMe reaches milestone as pandemic powers online transactions

 

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Hong Kong’s days of ‘cash is king’ may be in peril as fears of Covid-19 infection boost digital payments
South China Morning Post Excerpt
Sept 3, 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace at which Hong Kong is turning into a cashless society as fear of contracting the deadly disease has prompted people to shop online or pay by phone, transaction data and industry players suggest.

Visa, one of the world’s biggest payment companies, saw its e-commerce transactions in the city in the first half of 2020 rise 10 percentage points year on year, according to its Hong Kong head. In that period, 70 per cent of Visa transactions in Hong Kong were digital, up from 60 per cent a year earlier and higher than the wider Asia region at 41 per cent.

BOC Life, the third-largest life insurer in Hong Kong by new sales, recorded a 60 per cent annual jump in online sales of its insurance products, while the Hong Kong Monetary Authority saw a similar rise in transactions via its digital payment system in the first three months of the year.

More : Pandemic accelerates Hong Kong’s path to being cashless city

 

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McDonalds accepts PayMe at counters, rolls out HK$5 discount
August 23, 2021
The Standard Excerpt

Diners can now use PayMe to pay for meals at McDonalds outlets starting today.

The fast food chain announced today that customers can use the electronic payment method to pay at self-order machines, as well as counters served by staff, at all 245 McDonalds outlets in Hong Kong.

Earlier, McDonalds started allowing people to pay with PayMe on its app.

More : McDonalds accepts PayMe at counters, rolls out HK$5 discount