This partnership will allow over 250,000 Chinese tourists visiting the UK to pay using the Alipay app in over 1,000 locations nationwide.

Zapper is the first European mobile partner, allowing over 450 million active Alipay users to pay via the Alipay app across its full estate of affiliated Zapper businesses in the UK, Europe and North America. Launching imminently, the partnership demonstrates a strong synergy between both brands in terms of innovative, mobile based QR code technology. With over 85% of mobile payments in China currently made by scanning a QR code, the customer journey will be identical for Alipay users when purchasing goods and services using Zapper.

“With Zapper as a partner, Alipay can further enhance our user experience as they can conveniently shop outside of China and pay with Alipay.” Rita Liu, Head of Alipay EMEA, said. “Meanwhile merchants, in addition to the Alipay payment solution, can better connect and understand hundreds of thousands Chinese tourists travelling in the UK."

Scanning a QR code to make simple and secure payments has been the ‘norm’ with Alipay users in China for the last 12 years. Zapper currently provides a similar experience for it’s near 1 million users across 10 different countries and 12,000 affiliated businesses, to make assured payments and earn rewards by scanning a QR code using Zapper. With Zapper’s smart QR technology enabled to take payments from the Alipay app, 11.7 million Chinese tourists visiting Europe each year will be able to conveniently pay using Alipay at any venue also accepting Zapper.

Gerry Hooper, CEO Zapper UK & Ireland commented, “This is an incredibly exciting opportunity for us, pioneering the way by combining our synonymous QR code payment technology. A huge development enabling Chinese tourists to seamlessly continue using the highly popular Alipay app when travelling to the UK and our partnered Zapper venues to appeal more favorably to travelling Alipay users and stand out from the competition.”

According to VisitBritain, more than 250,000 Chinese tourists visited the UK in 2015, an increase in 45% from the previous year and spending a total of £586.22m. With an ever-increasing demand to visit the UK, this gives venues such as Burger & Lobster, CAU, The Big Easy, Vinoteca, Camino and Iberica, already benefiting from Zapper, the ability to strengthen their appeal to the Chinese market.

Zapper already has thousands of restaurants using the system internationally. The Zapper app is available for Android, iOS and Windows Phone platforms.