• Thousands of Taiwan businesses have signed up for Alipay payment system since its launch on Dec. 1 in the island.

Thousands of Taiwan businesses have signed up for Alipay payment system since its launch on Dec. 1 in the island. (Photo : www.english.sina.com)

Ant Financial, Alibaba's financial service affiliate that operates Alipay, said that nearly 3,500 Taiwan businesses, which include department stores, supermarkets, street vendor associations, chain stores and telecom firms, have signed up for its mobile wallet service since its official launch on Dec. 1, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

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Ray Gu, director of Ant Financial Global Business-Taiwan, said at a press conference earlier this week that the increasing number of mainland visitors to Taiwan has offered a huge business opportunity for Alipay as well as local small business to use the service.

The report said that about 3.22 million mainland tourists visited the island last year, an annual increase of 47 percent. This year, the number of tourist hit 3.11 million in the first nine months.

Winni Liu, executive vice president of Digital Business Department of E.SUN Bank and Ant Financial's Taiwan partner, said that introducing Alipay to Taiwan will give the island a good chance to promote digital payment mode.

"Many local business, especially small ones, are conservative about digital payment. Now, in order to attract mainland customers, they began to use Alipay and get used to the service. Later they will be more open to other local payment platforms," Liu said.

The report, however, said that unlike in the market where e-commerce and digital payment business are booming, many Taiwanese still prefer cash and offline shopping.

"The digital payment market in Taiwan is of great potential as about 70 percent of transactions here are still through cash," Gu said.

In May, Taiwan authorities issued a regulation on digital payment, which has been considered as an official approval for the service. In addition, a number of local banks and payment platforms are preparing to launch their own mobile payment services.

Gu, however, remained cautious about expanding business into local transactions, as he vowed to local digital payment service providers that Alipay will not pose a threat to them.