Hydrogen oxidation (HOR) and oxygen reduction (ORR) reactions at the platinum/alkaline ionomer interface were investigated using two different alkaline polymer electrolytes, i.e., benzyl-trimethyl ammonium tethered poly(phenylene) (ATM-PP) and phenyl-pentamethyl guanidinium tethered perfluorinated polymer (M-Nafion-FA-TMG). Substantial inhibition of HOR was taking place at the platinum-ATM-PP interface due to the possible cationic group adsorption of ATM-PP, whereas the reaction was virtually unaffected at the platinum-M-Nafion-FA-TMG interface after high anodic potential preconditioning. Moreover, the apparent ORR activity of platinum coated with M-Nafion-FA-TMG was found higher than that in 0.1 M tetra methyl guanidinium solution. In addition, the oxygen permeability of M-Nafion-FA-TMG was found to be similar to 2.5 times higher than that of ATM-PP. The above properties of the perfluorinated polymer make it a very promising ionomeric binder for the use in both anode and cathode of alkaline membrane fuel cells. (C) The Author(s) 2015. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse of the work in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. All rights reserved.