[Courtesy of Korea Smartcard]
Chinese tourists carrying smartphones will be allowed to use a mobile payment system in paying for public transport fares during their trips to South Korea, starting this week, as part of a campaign to resolve their complaints.
Millions of Chinese tourists visit South Korea every year but they feel inconvenient in using public transport because they had to buy single-use public transport cards while South Koreans could easily pay with their multi-use smart transport cards, credit cards or NFC-equipped smartphones.
From Tuesday, Chinese tourists can use "UnionPay Mobile Tmoney Service", a mobile payment system installed into smartphones, in almost any places across South Korea. Tmoney, introduced by Seoul, is less confusing and time-consuming.
A Seoul city statement said users can charge Tmoney anywhere in South Korea or even in China, and use smartphones just like conventional transport cards.
Tmoney will be available for the users of China Mobile. Seoul plans to expand its service next year to other Chinese mobile carriers such as China Unicom, China Telecom.
Aju News Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
