More than 1,800 Australian restaurants will be asked to temperature test all their staff as part of an initiative led by payments platform Alipay

• Having seen how businesses in China were forced to adapt to the coronavirus outbreak, Alipay is about to launch a slew of new initiatives in Australia.

• More than 1,800 restaurants will be asked to temperature test their employees as part of a a new partnership with delivery platform HungryPanda.

• Staff will also be provided with thousands of bottles of Australian hand sanitiser as efforts are made to restore confidence among Chinese consumers.

• Visit Business Insider Australia's homepage for more stories.

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Chinese payment giant Alipay is gearing up to get Australians spending again as the lockdown bites spending.

In doing so, it could give the country its first major taste of how businesses could run in the time of corona, with its northern neighbours well ahead of the curve.

"We can see a very big push now in China and a number of other Asian cultures approach during COVID-19," ANZ director John O’Loghlen told Business Insider Australia. "They want to exercise a kind of extreme caution to dining as well as interacting with any kind of delivery person or service provider."

A kind of cultural wariness is perhaps unsurprising given the impact of the SARS outbreak through Asia less than two decades ago. What's changed is businesses are far better placed to adapt and carry on.

One of the world's biggest payment platforms with more than 1.2 billion users worldwide, Alipay will begin rolling out a program of new initiatives named 'Zero Contact' bringing some of that "cultural sensitivity" down under in an effort to reassure its users.

Alipay gave Business Insider Australian an exclusive first peek of the program, which includes a partnership with food delivery platform HungryPanda that will see 1,800-odd restaurants asked to temperature test every member of staff involved from preparation, packaging and contactless delivery.

Those same restaurants and riders will all be issued with thousands of bottles of hand sanitiser from Australian skincare brand Du'lt, under another new partnership.

"We want to make sure delivery people are trusted and safe and try to export as much of this contactless experience to Australia and New Zealand as possible," O’Loghlen said.

The number of restaurants testing staff could quickly grow too, with Alipay offering the ability for businesses eager to get online to quickly digitise their menus.

The temperature testing is a significant extension of health measures implemented by the likes of Uber Eats and Deliveroo and perhaps even an extreme one in a land more known for being relaxed than rigorous.

But O'Loghlen, a Kiwi who spent 11 years living in China, see it as a necessary development to comfort consumers in a brave new world.

"We hope these kinds of measures will provide consumers with the confidence they need to continue supporting Australia's hospitality sector," he said.

With China having been at the epicentre of the outbreak, Alipay has already seen the kind of impact it can have on businesses. Working with local grocery supply chain operator Meicai, its promotion strategy saw more than 800,000 new customers signed up within a single week.

While its Australian user base is more modest, its reach is something the City of Melbourne is eager to leverage, encouraging businesses to sign up.

"We are doing everything we can to support local businesses to adapt to the current conditions and keep operating by offering products online, providing services virtually and offering take-away and delivery of goods," local councillor Susan Riley said in a statement.

It'll run webinars with local Alipay merchants demonstrating how to sign up, with O'Loghlen saying while its users are predominately Chinese given they require a mainland bank account, their merchants don't have to be.

"Oftentimes if you're not necessarily a Chinese-owned or operated business, or maybe your customers aren't 50% or more Chinese it's a bit more of a foreign journey to get Alipay up and running," he said.

"A lot of stores and staff still find interacting with Chinese consumers challenging from a cultural and language perspective, as the Chinese can sometimes be intimidated or nervous when it's not easy for them to communicate. We kind of help diffuse that whole thing, and it's a win-win for both sides."

As retailers, restaurants and others take a hit to their bottom line, the allure of one million plus customers might prove compelling – now more than ever.