NEW YORK – iFresh has announced the signing of a letter of intent (LOI) with CITCON, a cross-border mobile payments company, to provide smart supermarket payment solutions.

In a related announcement on Aug. 31, Xiamen Yidong Intelligent Technology Co. Ltd and iFresh announced iFresh’s exclusive distribution rights to sell Xiamen Yidong’s E+Store, E+Box, E+Door, E+AI, E+Cabinets, E+Shopping Cart, and related smart retail shopping products in North America, South America and Central America. The products replace manual labor in retail settings with automatic checkout systems that use palmprints, facial recognition technology, artificial intelligence technology, and mobile phone apps making the consumer’s experience more seamless.

Under the terms of CITCON’s and iFresh’s (LOI), CITCON will provide software for Xiamen Yidong’s products to accept US credit and debit cards allowing distribution across the US. CITCON will coordinate software development with Xiamen Yidong to ensure compatibility and proper integration.

“We are excited to announce the LOI with CITCON. As we prepare to rollout our smart retail technology in our stores and elsewhere, we believe CITCON is the perfect partner to execute our smart supermarket payments,” said Long Deng, Chairman and CEO of iFresh. “CITCON has previously worked with iFresh to implement mobile payments in our stores using the popular Alipay and WeChat Pay platforms. Both CITCON and Xiamen Yidong have already performed related work with iFresh and we are pleased to team up with these parties to ensure that our smart retail ecosystem is complete and localized.”

“A major shift is happening in the retail industry and payment is playing a key role. New unattended retail solutions in the supermarket space could bring disruption to the industry not seen since the introduction of self-serve checkout lines,” said Chuck Huang, Founder and CEO of CITCON. “CITCON is devoted to developing innovative payment and commerce solutions for businesses to better engage consumers who expect a simpler and more convenient shopping experience. We are pleased to extend our partnership with iFresh to implement solutions that would shape the future of retail.”