Eateries, vendors get on board with e-payments

Carine Chow

Over 90 percent of restaurants and half of all street vendors will have electronic payment installed when the consumption voucher scheme is launched in August, according to representatives of the two sectors.

Online registration for the HK$5,000 scheme begins on Sunday, allowing residents aged 18 or above to receive their vouchers through AlipayHK, Octopus, Tap & Go or WeChat Pay HK.

Trade leaders said they expect at least a 10 percent increase in catering and retail businesses.

Simon Wong Ka-wo, president of the Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades, said he expects the catering industry to return to around 90 percent of its prepandemic business by the end of the year.

"Of the HK$36 billion for the voucher scheme, I think one-third will go to the catering business," Wong said. "And then I think the public will spend an additional [HK$3.6 billion], which can boost our businesses."

He said over 90 percent of eateries, except some small-scale restaurants, will install at least one kind of electronic payment machine by August 1 - when the first vouchers are distributed.

Raymond Chan Kam-wing, head of the Federation of Hong Kong Kowloon New Territories Hawkers Association, said about 50 percent of street stalls at tourist attractions - such as Temple Street and Fa Yuen Street - will include at least one of the four electronic payments by the end of the month.

Hawkers are getting a one-off subsidy of HK$5,000 from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department to install a contactless payment system, "which is a great incentive," Chan said. He said the four operators have agreed to waive the setup cost of the machines.

But he expects only a fourth of wet market stalls to include electronic payments as many owners think it is too troublesome.

Some of the owners, like those who sell seafood, may have to take off their gloves before they can enter the amount into the machine," Chan explained.

Chan expects businesses for hawkers will increase by 10 to 20 percent.

Separately, Francis Fong Po-kiu, honorary president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, expects around 10 percent may buy a separate anonymous Octopus card for the scheme due to privacy concerns.

"Some of them do not want the government to know the pattern of their personal expenditure, so they would buy an anonymous Octopus card to hide their transaction history," he said.

And the promotional offers provided by the four platforms will be another factor voucher recipients will consider, he said.

From August 1, those who choose to use AlipayHK, Tap & Go and WeChat Pay HK will receive their vouchers in two rounds.

The first voucher worth HK$2,000 will be valid for five months while the second voucher for HK$3,000 - to be delivered two months later - will expire the same time as the first.

The two vouchers can be used at the same time.

Those who will receive the vouchers through Octopus cards will get them in three installments.

The first and second, both worth HK$2,000, will be delivered two months apart, while the remaining HK$1,000 will be disbursed if registrants have spent the HK$4,000.

Currently, both WeChat Pay HK and AlipayHK electronic wallets are supported at over 100,000 local retail outlets, while users can pay by Octopus at over 30,000 shops, according to their websites.

carine.chow@singtaonewscorp.com