Mastercard and Alipay Team to Advance Contactless Payments in Korea

This partnership will see the two companies provide support for mobile wallet Kakao Pay in launching NFC (near-field communication) payment for overseas transactions, the companies said in a Tuesday (Sept. 23) news release.

With this partnership, Kakao Pay becomes one of the first Alipay+ mobile payment partners to introduce “tap-to-pay” offerings when its users travel abroad.

“People today expect payment experiences that are seamless, intuitive, and built into the apps they already trust—like Kakao Pay,” said Sandeep Malhotra, Mastercard’s executive vice president for core payments in the Asia Pacific region.

“Through this partnership, Mastercard is making overseas payments simpler and more secure for Korean users when they travel. Instead of thinking about how to pay, they can focus on what matters—feeling confident and enjoying the moment, wherever they are in the world.”

According to the release, the partnership now lets Kakao Pay users make NFC payments at over 150 million Mastercard merchant locations around the world, including in Japan, Southeast Asia, the U.S., Europe and Oceania.

NFC payments let users simply tap their NFC-enabled Android phone on a contactless point-of-sale (POS) terminal that accepts Mastercard.

“This simplifies cross-border commerce, reduces the need of carrying physical payments, and ensures transaction security through advanced authentication and encryption,” the release said, adding that the service will eventually be available for the iPhone.

As PYMNTS wrote earlier this year, contactless transactions, backed by innovations like mobile wallets, tap-on-mobile  and open-loop transit payments, are becoming the expected go-to payment method.

For younger shoppers raised on smartphones and accustomed to digital convenience, the ability to pay anytime, anywhere with one tap has gone from being a luxury to an expectation, as they increasingly seek speed, security and ease of use.

“If you don’t support contactless, you may be missing out on business,” Julie Malikayil, senior manager, payments products at Discover Network, told PYMNTS. “Technology is moving faster than [businesses] can keep up with.”

The report adds that while speed and ease can be a double-edged sword in terms of payment security, that isn’t the case with contactless payments. Technologies such as NFC and EMV chips are now standard for delivering encrypted, tokenized transactions that help prevent fraud and protect personal data.

“Customers can feel comfortable that their contactless transactions are just as secure as the contact-based transaction that they are used to,” Malikayil said.