Beijing is one of the most populated cities in China. (Photo : The Guardian)
On Wednesday, KFC announced its partnership with Alipay, a payment tool of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, regarding its new mobile payment service.
The mobile app is reportedly applicable to more than 300 KFC stores in Beijing.
By simply scanning their payment codes generated by Alipay app, customers can pay for their food in a few seconds.
The transaction times with the scanning system is expected to take two seconds or less.
Before introducing it in Beijing, KFC was already rendering Alipay service in more than 700 stores in Shanghai and East China's Zhejiang Province.
“The cooperation with KFC China signifies the milestone on how Alipay will revamp offline payments across the country, and we are working closely with KFC China to provide better deals and services for customers,” said Fan Zhiming, president of Alibaba's Ant Financial payment business unit.
Based on a statement sent to a news agency on Wednesday, KFC will expand the new payment system to other cities in the Chinese mainland market.
The fast-food chain’s mobile payment service is a part of its online to offline strategy, which also includes its food order app.
Yet, KFC is not alone in recognizing that they need to draw near with the mobile Internet craze in the Chinese market.
McDonald's Corp., KFC's market competitor, will also start mobile ordering and mobile payment services in China by September.
In May, U.S. retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. also began using Alipay in some stores in the mainland.
Still, compared with local competitors in the catering industry, these foreign companies have been late to join the trend.
The Beijing-based hot pot restaurant chain Hai Di Lao has already adopted WeChat's mobile payment tool as early as 2013 and Alipay in 2014, based on reports.
