Alipay is going to launch offline payment partnering with Ubox to be its first partner next month. Consumers could use offline in bad internet connection areas.
Ubox is a Chinese top vending machine company, which developed its own app for mobile payments at vending machines. Now it will be the first company to support Alipay’s offline payment service.
The offline paying process is quite simple, ” Consumers can choose their products in front of a vending machine, then press the offline payment button on Alipay, and they get their products,” said one staff from Ubox, “The successful payment rate is the highest and the payment speed is the fastest.”
It is very convenient for consumers, for they don’t have to get changes from the vending machine. What’s more, consumers need not to replace their mobile phones and SIM like they have to in NFC payment, all they have to is to download an Alipay mobile app.
Offline payment doesn’t need internet, especially convenient and more likely to success in underground where mobile signals are weak.
Alipay is seen as the driving power for vending machine industry upgrading. Before, vending machines used notes and coins to pay, and it was difficult to prevent fake currency, collect money, to change and other problems. These were all solved after Alibaba had launched QR code scanning payment and sound wave payment.