Think Tank: Alipay’s Long Game — Global Expansion?

Alipay is one of the dominant forces in Chinese mobile payments solutions, but its ultimate goal, like with any payments company, is global expansion. This most noticeably came to the world’s attention when Alibaba secured a major expansion into the U.K. via their partnership with Barclaycard, but Alipay’s been in the game of taking its mobile payments solution beyond Chinese shores for far longer. The opportunity is pronounced here, with Alipay connecting global merchants with more than one billion Alipay users around the world, especially Chinese travelers abroad. Of these travelers, 69 percent used mobile payments last year, according to Nielsen. There are a few key reasons for this expansion to take place, and as a front line participant in this effort, I’ve gained some insight into how it is being accomplished, given that my company, RiverPay, connects Alipay as an authorized provider to more than 12,000 store locations and more than 30,000 points of sale in the U.S., Canada and Europe. That’s but one of the reasons Alipay (and its competitors, WeChat Pay and China UnionPay’s mobile app) are quickly going international. Payment Platforms Are Becoming “Must Have,” Not “Nice to Have” North American and European merchants know well the impact Chinese consumers can have,

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