As Octopus challenges WeChat Pay and Alipay, will the battle for Hong Kong taxis break new ground in a cash-reliant trade?
Payment giants from the city and mainland China are vying for influence. But there are still stumbling blocks on the way to industry-wide acceptance
Hong Kong’s taxi drivers have often been accused of refusing to move with the times and embrace electronic payments as an alternative to cash.
But from the end of last year, mainland e-payment operators WeChat Pay and Alipay began to crack the market, with QR code-based payments that have proved successful in mainland China. The battle for market supremacy hotted up when Hong Kong’s Octopus – makers of the city’s near-ubiquitous stored-value travel card – started using QR codes too, hoping to win over cabbies attracted by the cards’ popularity.
How can you pay Hong Kong taxi fares?
Until the end of last year, the only way to pay taxi fares in Hong Kong was cash, unless you used a taxi-hailing app and the driver was signed up to it. But things are changing. Now WeChat Pay, Alipay and Octopus are all vying to sign up as many local cabbies as they can. And taxi-hailing mobile apps such as HK Taxi, Didi Hong Kong and SynCab let passengers pay by credit card.
New app allows passengers to pay their cab fare with Octopus card
How receptive are local taxi drivers to these e-payment methods?