Verifone, Alipay Team Up for Easier Taxi Payments

Once again, Alipay demonstrates its pursuit of the growing Chinese tourist class by making itself a major part of one of the greatest tourism operations in one of the leading tourist centers: taxi service in New York City. A deal between Alipay and Verifone recently established will bring the mobile payment system to around 16,000 taxis in the city, and make catching a cab ride that much easier.

The reports note that the rollout will be a bit on the gradual side; around 2,100 taxis will have the service in place by the end of this month, and 14,000 more will be brought online in November. So by the time the lights go on on the tree in Rockefeller Center, just over 16,000 taxis should be in play with Alipay.

As it turns out, this isn’t the first such time the two companies have worked together. The reports note that this is an “…extension of their existing global partnership to Verifone Taxi Solutions.” The earlier operations seem to have been more focused on Las Vegas, though.

Alipay’s North American president Souheil Badran commented “Paying for taxis can be one of the most stressful elements of traveling abroad, particularly if you don’t speak the language. By extending our partnership with Verifone to taxis in New York and Las Vegas, two of the most popular destinations in America for Chinese tourists, we are giving greater confidence to Chinese travelers that they will be able to pay for their taxi ride using the same convenient payment method they use at home, without language barriers.”

Alipay has been almost frantically working at expansion operations in North America and beyond, eager to get a familiar tool into the hands of Chinese tourists. It’s been demonstrating this fact with frequent expansions over the last year or so. This likely won’t be good news for Glance Technologies, however, who as we know recently offered licensing rights to bring its Glance Pay system to Asian users.

Still, that’s competition in the field, and when you’ve got competition, you’ve got a healthy market building up. Good news for the user base, if nothing else, and a lot of travelers who will have a little more choice in mobile payments.