NCL tests use of Alipay system on NCL Joy

I went to review the Shareholder benefit and saw this news release. In a nutshell, the Chinese market is being allowed to charge items bought on the NCL JOY directly to their Alipay service rather than onto the ship's onboard account. Alipay is an Alibaba service and is similar to Google Pay or Paypal (and is expanding into America).

I wonder what the benefit is. Doesn't it all go to your credit card regardless? Or I guess directly from your checking account too, which might be better than carrying around large sums of cash to turn in to guest services?

Is China one of those countries that don't believe in credit cards, i.e. debt?

I went to review the Shareholder benefit and saw this news release. In a nutshell, the Chinese market is being allowed to charge items bought on the NCL JOY directly to their Alipay service rather than onto the ship's onboard account. Alipay is an Alibaba service and is similar to Google Pay or Paypal (and is expanding into America).

 

I wonder what the benefit is. Doesn't it all go to your credit card regardless? Or I guess directly from your checking account too, which might be better than carrying around large sums of cash to turn in to guest services?

 

Is China one of those countries that don't believe in credit cards, i.e. debt?

According to what I read about this service it is a mobile wallet more like a android pay or an apple pay system. You just use your phone in place of your actual credit or debt card.

Odds are if they are allowing that it is a cheaper method for ncl as well. NCL probably uses the shop accounts in the rest of the world because normal credit and debt cards have a per transaction and well as a percentage charge. If they just pay a percentage then NCL gets paid faster with no additional cost

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Alipay ... I wonder what the benefit is. Is China one of those countries that don't believe in credit cards, i.e. debt?

Well, might I suggest that you "baidu" (that's the equivalent of Google or Bing in searching) Alipay, it's been around since 2004 in China, that's for 1/4 of the world's population ... while we in the "West" are used to Paypal to handle some of our banking needs. Lookup "UnionPay" as well (est. 2002) and some merchants in the NY's Chinatowns are now spotting these logo & approved to accept them at POS for payment ... more popular than finding a restaurant or bakery that accept Android Pay.

These aren't the only ones, there are other EFT systems in operation that securely inter-connect virtually of the banking systems in China ... and, given their governance system, strictly monitored and tracked as established ... long before NFC some here heard of its deployment here.

Alas, sometimes, we need and should skip over our biases & learn to appreciate other countries like China with their fast growth & emergence as a world power to be reckoned with ... NCL doing this, certainly with advantages in mind and probably realized some cost savings as well as boosting the opportunities for generating revenue and sales in the Joy's markets.

Alas, sometimes, we need and should skip over our biases

Americans are pretty much conditioned to dislike "Alibaba" because it sounds "Middle Eastern" and because terror. This is also why Al Jazeera failed to make any headway in the US market and ultimately shut down after 2 years or so.

Americans will take a few hundred years to learn how and why they should learn to put bias aside. It's not happening in our lifetime.

It would be a poor marketing choice for NCL to associate "Alibaba" with NCL in their American marketing efforts.