Innovative payment service adopted by Beijing subway facilitates international exchanges, smart transit

Mastercard Greater China President Dennis Chang said Beijing Subway's new "tap to ride" service addresses a key challenge for foreign passengers and improves their experience in the capital, which makes the city a leader in smart transit.

The service allows international travelers to enter subway with just a quick tap of overseas issued bank cards, streamlining the process and making it more convenient than ever.

"This is a major milestone, all the international travelers coming into China, coming into Beijing, can use their overseas issued Mastercard to tap and go across some 10,000 gates at 490 stations in the Beijing subway system and this is simply outstanding, simply awesome. And it showcases how Beijing has become a smart transit city, a leader in the world in the category. It allows consumers to use the payment method that they are most familiar with as an international consumer. And I'm sure there will be more and more Chinese (cities) that (open) up (convenient) payment programs like this," said Chang.

Chang revealed that Mastercard started a program called "pay like a local" in 2023 to assist international travelers in China. Their first step was to connect with China's two biggest digital wallet - Alipay and WeChat. He believes that this is Mastercard's best way to answer the call of the Chinese government in high quality opening up.

Mastercard has doubled down on its acceptance and network expansion in China. As a result, it can not only facilitate inbound tourists but also provides domestic users more flexibility and variety of payment choices.

Looking ahead, Chang expressed Mastercard's commitment to capitalizing on China's efforts towards further digitization.

"I believe China can be a fantastic example of how a society migrates into digitization, advancing to more innovative and more interoperable payment solutions for its citizens, for the society. And this can be a fantastic example for the rest of the world that's going through the different stages of digitization and going into this development of payment ecosystems. And in Mastercard, we want to bring options for all the consumers, we want to bring value to all our business partners. And eventually we believe a global interconnected, interoperable payment solution (that) works for everyone, allows everyone to connect," he said.

Innovative payment service adopted by Beijing subway facilitates international exchanges, smart transit

The first widespread heavy rainfall China has experienced this year has triggered emergency responses across the country.

The National Meteorological Center (NMC) said the heavy rain is set to intensify throughout Saturday night to Sunday.

Level-IV flood control emergency responses were activated at 12:00 on Saturday for central China's Hubei Province and the southwestern Chongqing Municipality, while responses at the same level were maintained for the southern province of Guangdong and the southwestern province of Guizhou.

On early Saturday, heavy rain hit Guizhou's Zhenning Bouyei and Miao Autonomous County, with rainfall in some regions in the county exceeding 50 millimeters,

Trees toppled over on some roads in Zhenning, as thunderstorms and high winds swept the city.

Local authorities immediately launched emergency responses including hazard inspections and road obstacle clearance.

Continuing rainfalls in Guigang City in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region caused extensive flooding in major streets.

With the help of traffic control and flood drainage, the situation on the city's roads has returned to normal.

In Chongyi County, in east China's Jiangxi Province, persistent rain has flooded farmlands and triggered landslides on some roads.

Swift responses were launched to clear debris and reopen roads and traffic has started flowing again.

Heavy rains trigger emergency responses across China