Ant Financial has reached a deal that will let its users shop at 4m U.S. merchants that are served by payment processor First Data, placing Alipay in the same league as Apple Pay in terms of acceptance.
“This will open up Alipay to where it’s truly ubiquitous across the United States and hopefully more countries later,” said Souheil Badran, president of Alipay North America. In the U.S., “we decided rather than trying to do it on our own, this is an ecosystem that we’re looking for a partner that can provide scale.”