Mainland mobile payment services are increasingly accepted at various supermarket and stores in Taipei. These include WeChat Pay, Alipay, Visa, UnionPay and Line Pay.
Zhang, a tourist from the Chinese mainland, said that payment schemes have changed compared from before. He recalled that he had to exchange cash and carry several bank cards at all times during his stay on Taiwan. Now, he won't need to do this as he can now pay via his mobile phone.
Liu, a customer at the Sa Sa Cosmetics store in the Xinyi district of Taipei, quickly paid her purchases via WeChat Pay by placing her mobile phone under a scanning machine.
The mobile application produced an electronic receipt, which detailed the tag price of the products in USD, the conversion of it to Yuan, the exchange rate, as well as the time and place of the transaction.
WeChat payment service entered Taiwan in Jan. 2016. It is based on WeChat, a popular instant messaging application, which now has 846 million users worldwide.
According to Tencent's third-quarter earnings report from 2016, there are more than 300 million users that registered to use WeChat Pay.
According to Fanny Lin, the regional director of Tencent's overseas business group, the payment service has become accepted in over 30,000 stores across the island within just a year.
"By introducing mobile payment services, Taiwan's merchants want to explore new payment methods and establish long-term contact with mainland customers to help their e-commerce business target the mainland market," Lin added.
There are around 9,600 convenience stores that recently introduced WeChat payment in Taiwan. Sa Sa introduced the option for WeChat Pay last September wherein 40 percent of its mainland customers paid through this payment method.
WeChat Pay is currently available in 11 countries and regions, and they are cooperating with local banks in Taiwan for cross-border payment business certifications.
Wu Bochen, the manager of the digital application department of First Bank, another WeChat payment partner, said: "Cooperation with mainland mobile payment services will also help Taiwan banks improve service to medium-sized and small companies and strengthen economic and trade cooperation between the mainland and Taiwan."