CHINESE tourists planning a trip to Singapore can now purchase Flashpay cards for use on local transit and taxis in the Lion City, and pick them up upon arrival at Changi Airport, thanks to a partnership between Singapore’s NETS and Alipay.
NETS and Alipay yesterday launched an overseas transport card that can be purchased via Alipay Wallet, Alipay’s mobile wallet, which has 190 million active users across China.
To purchase the card, users simply log into their registered account via Alipay Wallet, and an e-voucher will be sent to their account. Travellers can collect their Flashpay cards by presenting the e-voucher at designated “Changi Recommends” counters at Changi Airport upon touchdown.
The cobrand Alipay Flashpay card costs S$50 (US$38.20), comprising a card cost of S$5 and a stored value of S$45. Customers are allowed to purchase up to five Alipay FlashPay cards. Visitors who redeem the card from now until March 31, 2015 will receive a S$20 voucher, courtesy of Changi Airport Group (CAG), a partner of this collaboration.
Ang Sok Hong, senior vice president, sales, NETS, said: “Given Alipay’s popularity amongst Chinese consumers and its volume of traffic, it was only natural for us to partner with Alipay to see how we could make outbound travel more seamless for Chinese tourism.”
Wendy Sun, head of business development for Alipay in South-east Asia, said: “This transportation card will provide Chinese tourists a hassle-free travel experience and we look toward to making this collaboration a great success.”
Peh Ke-Wei, vice-president, passenger development, CAG, said: “China is an important market to Changi Airport and is currently our fifth largest source market in terms of passenger numbers. CAG is constantly on the look-out to collaborate with like-minded partners to boost passenger traffic to and via Changi Airport.”
