Aenco X-files: Mobile Payment, Please!

Aenco focuses on real-life challenges of digital financing for both fintech projects and the investing community

2 min readDec 4, 2020

With mobile payment apps, customers can now skip the process to swipe their cards, wait for authorization, and sign, making shopping so much easier! Applications like Apple Pay and Google Pay further allow customers to make payment in seconds by tapping their smartphone, tablet or smartwatch.

Generally speaking, after connecting your bank account to the payment apps, they work by transferring money to another person’s or business’s app account during payments. Bluetooth or Near Field Communication (NFC) is commonly used for in-person retail payments, making these apps a securer payment method as advanced encryption or tokens are adopted to mask account numbers during transactions.

The Taiwan News reported that Taiwan’s mobile payment penetration rate reached 62.2% in 2019, nearly meeting the government’s goal of attaining 90% penetration by 2025. To encourage and popularize cashless payments, the easing of mobile banking processes and government support has changed customer’s behavior. For instance, mobile payment services are found in Taiwan’s public facilities like the MRT systems, forest parks, cultural venues, and night markets.

According to the Financial Supervisory Commission data, this resulted in a threefold spike of NT$47.8 billion in 2018’s mobile-payment transactions. Visa states that point-of-sale terminals are widely accepted in Taiwan, with 62% of usage, accounting a double than in Hong Kong (39%). Besides, cashless payment service offered by EMV (Europay MasterCard Visa) standard QR code has become progressively popular in places that traditionally advocate cash, like wet-market stalls and retail stores in Ximending.

Mobile payment thus becomes a popular payment method as it speeds up the checkout process and attracts impulse buyers for businesses.