Easebuzz Payment Gateway: Mobile Payment Magic Su-Pay 2.0 Launched

After spending ten months in Suzhou, German citizen Florian has found that his expat life has become easier and more convenient thanks to his "encounter" with "SuPay". "When I first arrived in Suzhou, I encountered some inconvenience in payment, but recently it has become much more convenient. SuPay is like a bank account. As long as you top up your account in advance, you can make payments in one go, which saves you a lot of trouble."

The mobile payment tool "SuPay", which was highly praised by Florian, is an innovative initiative jointly launched by the Suzhou Pilot Free Trade Zone and Bank of Suzhou to provide convenience to international friends in China. Recently, "SuPay" has been updated and upgraded, and thanks to this innovative mobile payment tool, expatriates' life in Suzhou has become "so easy".

Against the backdrop of open international development, the Suzhou Pilot Free Trade Zone has attracted many foreign companies and frequent travellers from abroad. However, in the midst of intense business exchanges, the issue of the convenience of electronic payments in China poses a challenge to many expatriates.

As early as the beginning of 2020, the Suzhou Pilot Free Trade Zone (SPSFTZ) proactively aligned itself with international economic and trade rules, and put forward a proposal to "encourage local banks to develop convenient electronic payment products" to address this "pain point". Under this initiative, the Bank of Suzhou was the first to pilot the mobile payment tool "SuPay" for short-term Japanese and Korean travellers in 2021.

In order to extend this mobile payment convenience to more expatriates, with the support of the People's Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), Suzhou Pilot Free Trade Zone (SFTZ) and Bank of Suzhou (BOS) have continued to innovate the system and empower the technology. The newly released upgraded version has been optimised in terms of service targets, foreign currency card types, usage scenarios, applicable areas, transaction limits, consumption methods and account opening efficiency.

Now, international visitors coming to China for a short period of time can complete the application for "SuPay" within 5 minutes by presenting their passports (or other valid documents), foreign currency debit/credit cards (only Visa cards are supported at present, and more types of cards are being upgraded), and domestic and international mobile phone numbers, without the need to download the app, and can be used on the same day.

Looking ahead, Suzhou Pilot Free Trade Zone will continue to actively participate in international high-standard economic and trade rules, continuously explore reforms and innovations, optimise the international business environment, attract global high-end resource elements with more open policies and better experiences, and enhance the confidence of enterprises to invest in choosing the zone.

Editor: Yan Chunxia

Letter dated 6 May 2024 from the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland