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Alipay, owned by Jack Ma's Anti Financial, will now enable its users to shop with 4 million U.S. merchants served by payments processor First Data. The explicit goal o the deal is to make Alipay ubiquitous across the United States and potentially additional countries going forward.
Alipay and Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat Pay dominate the mobile-payments market in China with a combined 90 percent share. Alipay now wants to leverage the millions of Chinese customers who travel abroad by offering them services wherever they go. The firm’s mobile wallet -- which can hold cards from American Express Co., Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., among others -- is already accepted by more than 100,000 retailers in 70 international markets, the company said. The First Data deal will put Alipay in the same league as Apple Pay in terms of acceptance. Apple Inc.’s mobile payments service can be used at 4.5 million locations in the U.S., Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said last week on a call with analysts.
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