Wirecard is now collaborating with National Bank of Greece and is integrating Alipay into the technical infrastructure of Greece’s largest bank as a new payment method.

As banks in Greece often provide local merchants with the entire terminal infrastructure, Wirecard has enabled NBG to integrate Alipay across the country in as many locations as possible. The aim is for most Greek merchants who operate in significant tourist attractions in the country to be able to offer Alipay as a new payment solution at the point of sale (POS) for their Chinese customers.

Greek islands and the capital Athens are particularly popular destinations for Chinese tourists. Thus, Greece has seen an increase of 400 per cent in Chinese tourists over the past five years, the stated goal of the Greek ministry of tourism is to welcome one million by the year 2021. With the new collaboration, Wirecard and the National Bank of Greece will provide them with their trusted payment method Alipay: over 450 million people in China use this mobile payment solution, making it the country’s favourite. Chinese tourists can receive offers from local merchants via smartphone push notifications even while travelling by aeroplane to their respective holiday destination.

Nelly Tzakou-Lambropoulou, General Manager of Retail Banking at National Bank of Greece: “Tourists are one of the most important target groups for Greek merchants. With this in mind, we are particularly proud that we are in a position to allow merchants to offer a payment method trusted by Chinese customers. This has all been made possible by Wirecard’s exclusive technical support and professionalism.”

Jörn Leogrande, Executive Vice President Mobile Services at Wirecard, adds: “We are proud to implement our technology in NBG’s payment processes. With this, we are enabling thousands of merchants to simultaneously offer Alipay as a new payment method for a financially strong target group. We believe that this, combined with the increasing number of Chinese tourists in Greece, will translate into a considerable sales potential for Greek merchants. Our aim is to work with financial institutions across Europe to integrate Alipay as an alternative mobile payment solution in as many till systems as possible.”

Since December 2015, Wirecard has been offering the innovative POS payment concept to merchants across the whole of Europe via the Alipay App.