Over 500,000 İşbank POS terminals will support cross-border mobile payments via Alipay+, enhancing the tourism experience for international visitors to Turkey, including Unifree Duty Free.
INSTANBUL – İşbank, Turkey’s largest private bank and one of the country’s widest payment network, has made a new development on its 100th anniversary by expanding its partnership with Alipay+ to enhance the travel experience for international visitors to Turkey.
İşbank will soon accept payments via Alipay+, Ant International’s cross-border mobile payments and digitalization technology solutions, at over 500,000 POS terminals across Turkey, including Unifree Duty Free at Istanbul Airport. The integration will roll-out to merchants gradually in a phased approach.
Unifree Duty Free is one of the leading travel retailers, stocking over 1,000 global and local brands and carrying over 35,000 products, providing a unique shopping experience to passengers all over the world.
Users of Alipay+ payment partners can make direct cross-border mobile payments via 12 international e-wallets and banking apps when making purchases at supported merchants, enabling users to access special promotions while also making seamless mobile payments .
Alipay+ works with its partners and merchants to serve 1.6 billion user accounts worldwide and is enabled in 66 markets globally, with over 90 million merchants. Among the 12 Alipay+ e-wallets and mobile partners accepted in Turkey are Alipay (the Chinese mainland), AlipayHK (Hong Kong SAR, China), Touch ’n Go eWallet and MyPB by Public Bank Bhd (Malaysia), Hipay (Mongolia), GCash (The Philippines), OCBC Digital and Changi Pay (Singapore), TrueMoney (Thailand), Tinaba (Italy), and Naver Pay and Toss Pay (South Korea).
İşbank Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Sezgin Lüle, stated: “We are excited to implement Alipay+ to facilitate the sale of products and services to tourists visiting Turkey, enabling tourists to experience the same payment habits they use in their daily lives back at home. By fully enabling Alipay+ at over 500,000 POS termainals operating in different sectors throughout our country, we believe that we will support Turkey in becoming a tourism destination.”
Pietro Candela, General Manager of EMEA at Alipay+, commented on the partnership: “We’re thrilled to expand our partnership with İşbank, granting Alipay+ partner users an improved travel experience when they visit Turkey and experience the world-class dining, retail, and unique experiences on offer. Turkey’s reputation is growing quickly among travellers from Asia and Europe, so merchants of all sizes which embrace the Alipay+ solution for payments will help accelerate the scale of global tourism in the country. With Alipay+, merchants can maximise all customer engagement opportunities, including physical and in-app touchpoints, before and during the user’s travels”.
Ceren Tongu, Chief Operations Officer, Unifree Duty Free, commented: “At Unifree Duty Free, our goal is to continually enhance the services, products, and experiences we offer our customers. Partnering with Alipay+ allows us to better serve our customers and enable us to engage all customers in an era where travel retail landscape is undergoing transformative changes with the acceleration of digitalization”.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
