Gebr. Heinemann has partnered with Australian bank Tyro to introduce digital payment platform Alipay at the former’s stores at Gold Coast Airport.

In an ‘Australian banking first’, Tyro offers Alipay’s merchants an all-in-one EFTPOS solution to facilitate improved access to the high-spending Chinese travel market. Heinemann is the first merchant to use Tyro’s platform to access Alipay.

The solution will be made available to Tyro’s other eligible 20,000-plus businesses from Q2 2019, as it seeks to diversify its revenue streams.

Richard Goodman, Managing Director of Heinemann Australia said: “We are excited to partner with Tyro in launching Alipay. We know Alipay is not only the preferred payment method by many of our valued Chinese customers, it also offers increased convenience, with the trend toward cashless digital wallets. We look forward to rolling it out across our Australian stores.”

TYRO-ALIPAY SIGNED IN AUGUST

Quoting statistics from Nielsen, Tyro says 65% of Chinese tourists use mobile payment platforms during overseas travel – a six-fold increase over non-Chinese tourists (11%).

The findings show more than 90% of Chinese tourists would consider using Alipay when travelling abroad should it be more widely accepted among foreign merchants, and more than 90% would increase their spending as a result.

According to Tourism Australia, the Chinese market could be worth an estimated AUS$13bn by 2020.

Approximately 1.4 million Chinese visitors visited Australia in the year ending February 2018 – an increase of 13.2 per cent, with that number set to rise to 3.9m by 2026-27, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

“Bringing innovative payment and banking solutions to Australian businesses is what Tyro is all about and our partnership with Alipay allows us to offer Tyro merchants a market-leading initiative with a unique point of difference,” added Tyro CEO Robbie Cooke.

“We are thrilled to have Heinemann Australia on board as our first merchant taking advantage of Tyro’s Alipay integration and proud to be the first bank in the country to bring this exciting initiative to Australian businesses.

“This is all the more impressive given it was only at the end of August that we signed our deal with Alipay.”

Heinemann has already struck similar arrangements to offer electronic payment services at its German airports.

In September, it announced a pairing with Wirecard to introduce Alipay and WeChat pay at its 28 stories at Frankfurt Airport as a prelude to a wider roll out to Heinemann Duty Free and Travel Value shops at 12 further locations.