Star Metro - Powering Macau's Smart Future with AI - MACAU Pass and Ant Bank (Macao) Partner with Alibaba Ecosystem to Showcase Smart City Vision at BEYOND Expo

MACAU Pass: Cultivating a New Digital Payment Ecosystem to Empower Smart City and Greater Bay Area Connectivity

As Macau accelerates its smart city development and advances its strategy for moderate economic diversification, digitalization has melded into the city dynamics, becoming a core engine for high-quality development. With deep roots in Macau for over two decades, MACAU Pass pioneered the city's transit card and e-wallet, actively driving the adoption of mobile payments. As a key contributor to Macau's digital economy, it is now helping the city's digital ecosystem evolve from "convenient payments" to "intelligent services."

Currently, MPay e-wallet serves nearly 90% of Macau's local residents and is deeply integrated into their daily lives, serving as a super-app that brings all digital services into one place. MPay has simplified daily routines, covering over one hundred lifestyle scenarios-including dining, retail, group-buying, ride-hailing, event tickets, utility bill payments, and cross-border payments.

This digital payment interoperability also deepens Macau's integration with the Chinese mainland and the global economy. Powered by the Alipay+ global payment network, MPay is now accepted in 62 countries and regions, while MACAU Pass's merchant acquiring service covers approximately 90% of local businesses, enabling tourists from over 10 countries and regions to pay seamlessly with their local e-wallets, significantly enhancing the payment experience for inbound travelers. The familiar mCard has also evolved beyond local transport. New products like the "MACAU Pass-China T-Union mCard," "Zhuhai-Macau Public Transport Card," and "Wuhan-Macau Pass Card" now enable seamless public transport access across mainland cities, deepening Macau's integration into the transportation networks of the Greater Bay Area and the nation.

MACAU Pass is also at the forefront of integrating AI with its commercial services. In April 2026, the company launched its proprietary "AI Payment Assistant," which lowers the technical barrier for small, medium, and micro-sized enterprises (SMMEs) to thrive in the AI era. Previously, MACAU Pass partnered with Amap to launch the "Macao City Life Support Program". This initiative revitalizes local communities by boosting the visibility of time-honoured eateries and small merchants, especially those tucked away in the city's alleys, through AI-powered digital storefronts and significant promotional traffic.

"Macau, with its global outlook and national support, is seizing a strategic opportunity for the convergence of its digital economy and AI," said Sun Ho, Chairman and CEO of MACAU Pass. "Widespread mobile payment adoption has built a solid digital foundation for diverse scenarios, while also accelerating Macau's connectivity with the Greater Bay Area and the world at large. Going forward, we will leverage AI as an engine to ensure that these innovations drive merchant growth, public convenience, and urban prosperity."

Ant Bank (Macao): Advancing All-Scenario Smart Finance to Upgrade Macau's Modern Financial Industry

Macau's modern financial industry is a key pillar of its economic diversification strategy and a critical force driving the real economy. Drawing on the technological strengths of Ant Group and Alibaba Group, Ant Bank (Macao)-the first digital bank fully integrated into the local ecosystem-has built an end-to-end digital financial service system. This system covers the core financial needs of residents and businesses, from payments, savings, wealth management, credit, to cross-border remittance, and is a powerful force for the high-quality development of Macau's smart finance.

In October 2025, the bank launched its first 24/7 unmanned self-service branch, which relies on intelligent technology to offer services like cash deposits, cheque drop-offs, and account inquiries, bringing smart finance into the daily lives of residents.

As an international free port, the convenience and efficiency of Macau's financial services are vital to its economic vitality and global competitiveness. Ant Bank (Macao) is driving this progress on all fronts: from building a cloud-native core systemto extending offline smart service networks, and from ensuring precise coverage for personal inclusive finance to fully empowering corporate financial services, continuously injecting digital momentum into the city's modern financial industry and helping to establish Macau as a global hub for financial innovation.

Alibaba Ecosystem Partners to Shape a New Paradigm in Macau's Urban Development

The foundation for this collaboration was laid in 2017 with a strategic partnership framework agreement between the Macao SAR Government and Alibaba, which designated Alibaba Cloud as the core technical backbone for the city's smart city development. Building on this foundation, Alibaba Cloud took center stage at this year's BEYOND Expo, showcasing its world-leading AI infrastructure, a rich and open ecosystem of models, and innovative agent-building tools for enterprises and developers.

Alibaba's Qwen model family offers a wide range of choices, from open-source to proprietary, balancing cost-effectiveness with local adaptation. This allows it to meet the diverse needs of large enterprises, SMMEs, and individual developers, accelerating the adoption of AI technology. Leveraging this core technology, Alibaba Cloud is advancing an open and accessible AI service ecosystem where both enterprises and developers can flexibly build the AI capabilities they require. Currently, Alibaba Cloud is widely serving the digital transformation of global enterprises, supporting the global expansion of Chinese companies and smart city construction, empowering the intelligent upgrading of countless industries with its secure and trusted technology.

A variety of cutting-edge AI terminals and innovative applications from the Alibaba ecosystem were featured at the expo. A major highlight was the Qwen AI Glasses, connected to Alibaba's most powerful Qwen model. Functioning as both a wearable super-assistant and a first-person view camera, the glasses feature pioneering capabilities such as proactive services, spatial 3D display, and AI-cloned simultaneous interpretation. They are also seamlessly integrated with Alibaba's full suite of lifestyle services-including shopping, payments, ride-hailing and travel booking-and proved to be a major attraction for attendees at the expo. The showcase also featured the JVS Agent-Building Suite (including JVS Claw Teams, JVS Crew, and JVS Mobile), which demonstrated how its one-stop solution for building and deploying AI agents allows companies to create reliable "digital employee teams". In addition, the Wukong AI AssistantandDingTalk A1 Office Intelligence Assistant are precisely tailored for core enterprise tasks-including content creation, smart meeting assistance, and collaborative workflows-all empowering businesses to achieve significant gains in digital performance.

By combining MACAU Pass's one-stop digital life services, Ant Bank (Macao)'s all-scenario smart finance, Alibaba Cloud's foundational AI and computing power, and the tangible application of interactive products like the Qwen AI Glasses, Alibaba's ecosystem companies are working in synergy. They are committed to creating a new urban service paradigm that is perceptive, interactive, and constantly evolving, partnering with Macau's government, businesses, and the community to build a vibrant urban future where AI converges with digital and physical realities.

Public Relations:

Macau Pass Group Holdings Ltd.

May

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE: AGTech Holdings Ltd

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

A.Bergeron--SMC