Bike-rental war escalates with Alipay supporting “scan-and-ride” function for six bike-rental apps

Alipay, the online and mobile payment platform operated by Ant Financial, has teamed up with six bike-rental apps to allow users to rent 6 million bikes in 50 cities across China directly through the app’s new “scan and ride” function.

Users can unlock any ofo, YouonBike, Bluebike, hellobike, Ubike or funbike vehicle simply by scanning its QR code through the Alipay app starting from today, the company announced.

Bike-rental has exploded in China over the past year, with tens of millions of users taking millions of rides every day across the country. However, users are facing with an increasingly bothering problem of choosing between a “rainbow” of different bike rental services. For users, new service eliminates the need to download individual apps for each service. For the companies on the other hand, the partnership helps both parties to drive more traffic.

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