solarisBank To Grow Alipay In Europe; PagBrasil Teams With Singapore’s APACPAY

Welcome to The Axis, your late look at payments news from around the world. Coverage includes solarisBank‘s tie-up with Alipay for payments in Europe. PagBrasil is working with Singaporean payment service provider APACPAY to grow payment options in Brazil, a decline in self-service payment terminals in China has come amid fast mobile payments growth in the country and travelers in the United Kingdom are projected to make more than one million trips using contactless payments on the TfL network.

Banking platform solarisBank is teaming up with Alipay to help the digital payment service grow its acceptance point network in Europe, according to reports. As a result, solarisBank will work with Alipay network technical service providers (TSP) heading into the future. According to the report, solarisBank Chief Commercial Officer Jörg Diewald said, “Chinese tourism is booming in Germany and Europe,” and noted, “the cooperation between Alipay and solarisBank makes it easier for Chinese tourists to use trusted payment methods on holiday without having to withdraw cash.” Just under 13 million — or 12.7 million — tourists from China visited Europe in 2017 and the demographic “accounts for the largest share of all tourists worldwide” per the report.

In other news, PagBrasil is working with Singaporean payment service provider APACPAY to grow cross-border transaction options in Brazil, according to reports. As it stands, the two platforms are said to have been integrated, and customers of APACPAY can tap into local payment choices. The payment platform from PagBrasil offers services from money collection to cross-border remittances. And the payment gateway from APACPAY gives access to more than 200 alternative payment methods, while its i-RiskCloud risk management service taps into artificial intelligence (AI) and big data.

And, in China, a drop in the number in the number of self-service terminals such as automated teller machines (ATMs) has come amid fast mobile payments growth, China Daily reported.  The number of ATMs in the country at banks fell by 17,800 to arrive at 1.11 million on a quarter-on-quarter basis. One firm noted, according to the report, “… the deployment of bank self-service terminals including ATMs kept slowing down due to the rapid development of mobile payments.” Banking institutions handled 60.53 billion transactions for mobile payments in 2018, with 277.39 trillion yuan in total volume. In addition, a Payment and Clearing Association of China indicated that eight in 10 mobile payment users tapped into that function daily.

In the United Kingdom, travelers in London are forecast to make more than one million trip using contactless payments on the TfL network per Paymentsense figures, Techradar reported. And, within 2025, 1.5 billion contactless trips are expected to be made. Paymentsense Chief Marketing Officer Guy Moreve said, according to the report, “As a society, it’s clear that new payment methods will evolve as consumer demands shift towards improved security and ease of use when making a transaction.” As it stands, the introduction of contactless came to the transportation network in 2014.