İşbank partners with Alipay+ to manage global tourism boom

Turkey Isbank Museum of Economic Independence, night view turkey ankara altindag october 23, 2022.
Editorial credit: okanozdemir / Shutterstock.com

İşbank, Turkey’s largest private bank, has expanded its partnership with Alipay+ to improve the travel experience for international visitors.

As part of the initiative, İşbank will enable payments through Alipay+ at over 500,000 POS terminals across Turkey, including Unifree Duty Free at Istanbul Airport. The integration will be rolled out gradually to merchants in phases.


Alipay+ users can make direct cross-border mobile payments at participating merchants using 12 international e-wallets and banking apps, offering access to exclusive promotions and aiming to ensure smooth transactions.

Sezgin Lüle, Deputy CEO of İşbank,  stated: “We are excited to implement Alipay+ to facilitate the sale of products and services to tourists visiting Turkey, enabling tourists to experience the same payment habits they use in their daily lives back at home. 

“By fully enabling Alipay+ at over 500,000 POS terminals operating in different sectors throughout our country, we believe that we will support Turkey in becoming a tourism destination.”

Alipay+ currently serves 1.6 billion users across 66 markets and 90 million merchants worldwide. 

In Turkey, it supports 12 e-wallets and mobile partners, including Alipay (China), AlipayHK (Hong Kong), Touch ’n Go (Malaysia), GCash (Philippines), OCBC Digital (Singapore), TrueMoney (Thailand), Tinaba (Italy) and Toss Pay (South Korea).

Pietro Candela, General Manager of EMEA at Alipay+, commented: “We’re thrilled to expand our partnership with İşbank, granting Alipay+ partner users an improved travel experience when they visit Turkey and experience the world-class dining, retail, and unique experiences on offer. 

“Turkey’s reputation is growing quickly among travellers from Asia and Europe, so merchants of all sizes which embrace the Alipay+ solution for payments will help accelerate the scale of global tourism in the country. 

“With Alipay+, merchants can maximise all customer engagement opportunities, including physical and in-app touchpoints, before and during the user’s travels”.

As mentioned above, this deal also includes Unifree Duty Free, a leading travel retailer offering over 1,000 global and local brands, with a product range of more than 35,000 items.

Ceren Tongu, Chief Operations Officer at Unifree Duty Free, said: “At Unifree Duty Free, our goal is to continually enhance the services, products, and experiences we offer our customers. 

“Partnering with Alipay+ allows us to better serve our customers and enable us to engage all customers in an era where the travel retail landscape is undergoing transformative changes with the acceleration of digitalisation”.

Travel payments have seen significant growth in recent years as people recover from the Covid-19 restrictions. In October, Alipay+ shared three key trends shaping tourism, offering insight into the sector’s evolution. 

These trends include travellers’ preference for using their home payment methods abroad, a shift in spending towards local experiences, and the growing popularity of all-in-one payment apps.