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How Alipay+ and Grab enabled seamless cross-border payments for travelling tourists with StraitsX
Challenge
A seamless tourist wallet, and merchants with limitations
Alipay+ was designed to give travellers a familiar, secure way to pay abroad using the wallets they already trust. But while millions of tourists arrived in Singapore ready to scan and pay, their wallets often didn’t work at the local checkout.
Despite strong adoption in home markets, Alipay+ users faced fragmented QR ecosystems and limited merchant acceptance abroad. The result? A disjointed user experience, with missed opportunities for both consumers and local businesses.
Meanwhile, GrabPay merchants, from cafes and convenience stores to boutiques and hawker stalls, faced their own challenges. Enable foreign wallet acceptance typically required new systems, delayed settlements, heavy backend reconciliation efforts, and FX exposure, which all added friction to daily operations and made it hard to scale.
To truly unlock the value of cross-border digital wallets, a better solution was needed, one that worked seamlessly for travellers, and invisibly for merchants.
StraitsX Approach
Limitless reach with one integration
To bridge the gap between Alipay+ wallet users and local merchant acceptance, StraitsX delivered a solution that required no changes to the merchant experience while unlocking seamless cross-border interoperability.
Through integration with the existing GrabPay QR infrastructure, Alipay+ users could pay at over 130,000 merchants across Singapore using the wallets they already knew and trusted. Tourists simply scanned a GrabPay QR code, while merchants processed the payment as they would any other local transaction — with no new hardware, onboarding, or training needed.
Behind the scenes, StraitsX powered the full stack:
- Real-time FX conversion
- Purpose Bound Money (PBM) for programmable, conditional payments
- 24/7 blockchain-based settlement in SGD
StraitsX handled the backend complexities, including real-time FX conversion and 24/7 settlement in SGD. International transactions were facilitated through Purpose Bound Money (PBM) — a programmable digital money format that enables conditional transfers on the blockchain. PBM ensured payments were secure, traceable, and executed instantly, while significantly reducing the cost and friction associated with traditional cross-border money movement. By anchoring value on-chain and attaching usage conditions, StraitsX was able to provide a more reliable and cost-efficient way to route funds across borders.
Merchants were shielded from foreign currency risk and did not face payout delays. Funds arrived in local currency, instantly, improving operational efficiency and cash flow.
This invisible yet impactful integration gave Alipay+ users the ability to pay in their local currencies, while GrabPay merchants received funds instantly in SGD, shielded from FX risk. Both parties were given instant access to a vast retail network, creating a smooth, scalable payment experience for both users and merchants.
Results and Benefits
+180%
increase in total transaction volume
+800%
growth in unique users (from ~1,000 to ~8,000)
+400%
increase in number of transactions (from ~1,500 to ~9,500)
Frictionless traveller experience
Users paid using their home wallets in their local currency with no confusion or extra steps.
Merchant simplicity
GrabPay QR merchants didn’t need to retrain staff or upgrade systems.
Operational confidence
Real-time FX and settlement abstracted away complexity for both sides.
“We are proud to partner with StraitsX and Grab on this innovative solution. Our partnership gives global travellers even greater convenience when paying with their home payment app while in Singapore as we welcome GrabPay merchants, which include some of the most beloved local brands. Additionally, we are facilitating more efficient, secure, and lower-cost funds transfer, and look forward to playing our part to enhance consumer and merchant experiences through innovation.”
“Our partnership with Ant International and StraitsX is part of our ongoing efforts to minimise friction and enhance the payment experience for consumers and small businesses on our platform. Currency exchange can often be a pain point for tourists. With this collaboration, visitors to Singapore can now enjoy the convenience of using their preferred wallet when paying at any restaurant or retail merchant displaying the GrabPay QR. This also provides these merchants with immediate Singapore dollar settlement, improving cash flow and reducing the complexities associated with foreign currency transactions.”
Future Outlook
Scaling cross-border simplicity across Asia
Through the StraitsX cross-border payments solution, Alipay+ unlocked seamless, real-time wallet acceptance at over 130,000 GrabPay QR-enabled merchants in Singapore. By abstracting away the complexity of FX, settlement, and infrastructure integration, StraitsX enabled Alipay+ users to pay with their home wallets, in their local currencies, without friction.
With this foundation in place, Alipay+, StraitsX, and Grab are now working to extend the model across more verticals, seasonal campaigns and global corridors — creating a future where cross-border digital wallet payments feel as seamless as local ones.
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