Alipay to replace metro cards with mobile passes

With Alipay's All Pass, passengers can make payments with a simple swipe of their phone. (Photo: Alipay)

ECNS) – Alipay, a payment service under e-commerce giant Alibaba, on Wednesday launched a virtual "All Pass" that transforms a cell phone into a metro card usable in multiple cities.

On Near Field Communication (NFC) supported phones, passengers can apply for the All Pass under a tab called "City Pass." After putting money in, passengers can pay their metro rides by swiping their phones.

Right now, the All Pass is only available on three OPPO phone models in 35 cities, but work is underway to strike deals with more cell phone brands. By the end of this year, most NFC-supported phones, such as Samsung and HTC, will carry the service, and the number of supporting cities will increase to 60.

Prior to Alipay's All Pass, the procedure to apply and recharge an intercity bus pass could be rather inconvenient. Ma Hong, director of the IC card application service center, said there's an increasing demand for a universal and easy-to-use metro pass as people travel across cities frequently.

What's more, the move could help improve the country's public transportation, said Wang Lijuan, president of Alipay's O2O department. Alipay will share its technology in cloud computing, big data, mobile payments and digital mapping with phone companies and the transportation department to revamp the metro system, she added.