Alipay expands across Europe after deals with major banks and payment providers

Another 930,000 European merchants will soon accept Alipay mobile payments at the point of sale, following partnerships between the company and some of Europe’s largest financial institutions and payment service providers.

AlipayThe Ant Financial-owned firm is collaborating with BNP Paribas, Barclays, UniCredit and SIX Payment Services to enable Chinese tourists to make payments using the Alipay barcode-scanning capability across the continent, providing its 450m users with “more opportunities to use its services across Europe”.

BNP Paribas will bring Alipay to France, while Barclays will do the same in the UK, and both will support the service “elsewhere in Europe”. SIX Payment Services will add Alipay support to its payment terminals and UniCredit will launch Alipay in Italy next year.

‘Greater exposure’

“In addition to POS payments, Alipay is also exploring ways to give overseas merchants greater exposure to Chinese consumers,” Alipay says. “Alipay’s Discovery platform helps European retailers target Chinese users who travel to Europe, and enables Alipay users to connect with European merchants to receive merchant information and promotional offers.

“Users can search information on over 570,000 European merchants in 381 cities in 20 countries on the platform.”

“Our users’ lifestyles are increasingly global, so it is vital we are able to work with the leading payment providers around the world to bring our trusted and convenient services to Alipay users wherever and whenever they need them,” says Douglas Feagin, SVP of Ant Financial and president of Alipay.

‘Next level’

“We already have partnerships with some of Europe’s most well-known retailers, which have proven extremely popular with travelling Chinese consumers. By working with financial institutions who already have a massive footprint in Europe, we are taking our presence in the continent to the next level.”

Alipay announced its plans to expand into Europe at Money20/20 Europe in April 2016.

Last month, French department store Printemps partnered with financial services company Wirecard to accept mobile payments from customers using Alipay, the first in France to support the payments solution.

In June, Chinese tourists were able to make payments at 210,000 store locations in Germany serviced by payment provider Concardis. The following month payment processor Worldline added its support for Alipay mobile payments in Germany.

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