Unsere Regeln! » to financial and logist

HELSINKI Uomo Nike Air Max 97 Blu Bianche Scontate , Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- Finland's biggest chain ofdepartment stores Stockmann agreed on Friday to install China'sAlipay as one of its payment methods.


The move was considered a milestone for the Chinese mobilepayment platform to be recognized in Europe.


The first sale ever done through Alipay at a Stockmann cashierdesk was operated on Friday morning by the giant retailer's chiefcommercial officer Anna Salmi, who sold a pair of glass mugs to YinWei, chief financial officer of Finnish mobile payment companyePassi, Alipay's partner in Finland.


Yin spent a few seconds in scanning the barcode and confirmingthe payment before he took over the parcel from Salmi. "I hope thisrepresents the future of payment method in Finland," he said.


As Yin explained, the money will be transferred in thebackground from the customer's Alipay account to ePassi and furtherto Stockmann.


Salmi said she was not surprised by the speed of thetransaction, as she had seen it on internet before. What made hermost excited was the fact that Alipay is much more than a paymentmethod.


"For us it is part of the deal to help the customers withpre-know -- what's here, what we offer, what services that we have,hopefully at some stages even open a dialogue box where customerscan get service," Salmi told Xinhua.


"It is about also managing the expectations, and getting thosefrom the right level. (We) hopefully get some feedback as wellthrough that channel. That will help us to develop our services tobe more suitable for the Chinese tourists," she added.


The Chinese tourists have been the second biggest national groupat Stockmann, following Finland's neighboring country Russia.


"With the speed that it has been growing, I think it's verymeaningful for us, as Alipay is the key payment method for theChinese tourists," said Salmi.


Now that the new system is in place, an internal training forthe employees to adapt to the payment method will be carried outsoon. Salmi predicted the overall launch of Alipay in the flagshipdepartment store in central Helsinki would start in the middle ofSeptember.


An effort to expand the use of Alipay more widely to otherStockmann shops in Finland and in the Baltics is optional,according to Salmi.


In a country where bankcards have been available since 1980s,Finnish citizens have been relying on bank cards and the banks arebacking this traditional payment heavily. The situation seemschallenging for emerging mobile payment players.


"Only lately the mobile payment has become a general paymentthanks to our cooperation with Alipay," said Risto Virkkala, CEO ofePassi, noting that the cooperation has had its merchant networkexpanded rapidly as well.


While the Western Europe is still relying on the old legacy,Chinese mobile payment ecosystem has been developed from scratch tobecome quite mature.


"China is way more advanced in mobile payments," said Virkkala.He told Xinhua that he believed "the approach is now coming toEurope."


With some 600,000 customers and 30 percent market share, ePassihas become the biggest mobile payment operator in Finland with avision to expand to the whole Nordic area as well.


In collaboration with ePassi, Alipay was first introduced toFinland last year, and the business was highlighted by a launchingceremony of the Single's Day global online shopping festival inRovaniemi, an arctic tourist destination in northern Finland.


Early this year, Finland's national carrier Finnair activatedAlipay on its flight from Shanghai to Helsinki, becoming the firstairline to offer the online payment system onboard.


by Justice Lee Adoboe


ACCRA, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- After months of inactivity, Ghana's state oil refiner, Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), has bounced back, the company said here on Thursday.


TOR started refining crude oil late December 2014 after it received 800,000 barrels of crude oil from Sahara Oil, a Nigerian petroleum company.


Aba Lokko, Corporate and Public Affairs Manager for TOR, told Xinhua over the telephone that the comeback was made possible through a financial agreement signed with Access Bank.


TOR's last refinery was in August 2014 but due to financial and logistical challenges the state oil refiner could not procure crude for its core business.


"Due to financial challenges, we could not raise Letters of Credit from financial institutions to import crude," Lokko explained.


She said the company also had to upgrade some of its machines to bring them to optimal performance while automating its operations to reduce the manual interventions.


"We had to postpone this turnaround upgrading and equipment replacement due to the same financial challenges," she added.