E-wallets and cashless payment modes are set to grow in popularity among passengers, and businesses within Changi Airport are gearing up to provide such services to meet demand.

Following Changi Airport Group’s (CAG) partnership agreement with Liquid Group, a mobile payment services group operating within the Southeast Asia region, passengers can now look forward to a wider variety of Quick Response (QR) payment options at their disposal.

Enhancing Changi Airport’s QR payment options

At present, 70 percent of Changi’s airside and landside outlets accept QR payments through Alipay, WeChat Pay and CUP QR-enabled payments. These methods are used predominantly by Chinese passengers.

With this collaboration, CAG will roll out Liquid Group’s open QR payment platform, enabling payment through major local and international QR payment platforms. 

Participating businesses which adopt Liquid Group’s unified QR payment code will be able to accept payment from apps that are compliant with the SGQR/ local network. This includes e-wallet or QR payment applications like GrabPay, Liquid Pay, SingTel Dash and Ezi Wallet, as well as QR PayNow function supported by many Singapore-based bank apps. 

Teo Chew Hoon, CAG’s Group Senior Vice President for Airside Concessions, notes, “With the rise in QR payments, launching Liquid Group’s unified QR payment platform not only provides a frictionless payment experience, it also provides more partnership opportunities with local and overseas e-wallet issuers.”

International passengers can also pay using other cross-border QR payment options and e-wallet services available through the VIA network or through app partners like UnionPay. 

These new QR payment options are just the tip of the iceberg as Liquid Group is working to expand their network in the coming months. It announced recently that it is working to launch a cross-border QR payment service with one of Indonesia’s major banks, CIMB Niaga through its Go mobile app.

The agreement will also see the integration of Bank Indonesia’s Quick Response Indonesia Standard (QRIS) code into Liquid Group’s cross-border payments platform. This will allow Indonesian travellers to use their preferred local payment apps to make purchases in their domestic currency (Rupiah) at Changi.

CAG’s retail partners will benefit, too

Besides upgrading payment services, Changi Airport and the participating payment applications will be able to tailor discounts, promotions and marketing campaigns without additional cashier training or verification.  

Airport merchants will also stand to benefit from the partnership with the implementation of a single unified Point-of-Sale system to accept payment from these different platforms. Businesses will get to enjoy improved productivity and reduce the need for mass retraining, following the removal of multiple equipment for various QR payment modes.