Urban refunds

The following figure illustrates the work flow for an urban refund:

Figure 1. Urban refund

1. After making a purchase, the customer provides the necessary information to the tax refund company.
2. The customer must provide the information such as passport number and shopping information via the tax refund desk or machines placed in shopping malls by the tax refund company. If the customer has used Alipay to claim tax refund previously, a new tax refund process can be initiated by inputting phone number or scanning the Alipay barcode.
3. The tax refund company sends all the information collected in step 2 to Alipay, and Alipay will return the Alipay account information to the customer to confirm.
4. After the customer confirms the Alipay account on the machine or refund desk, the tax refund company then sends the confirmation to Alipay and prints the tax refund form.
5. The tax refund company also needs to send all the payment and tax refund data to customs.
6. At the airport, the customer gives the tax refund form generated in step 4 to customs for a stamp, and scans the QR code at the tax refund machine. When the tax refund company receives the confirmation and the result is sent to Alipay via the real-time API, Alipay then processes and refunds the money to the customer.
7. Alipay provides the bill files for the tax refund company, and the tax refund company should remit the funds to Alipay within the agreed period and upload the remit file on the SFTP server.