Chinese payments behemoth Alipay is moving in to the US market through deals struck with Eftpos terminal suppliers First Data and Verifone.
Under the deals Alipay will be available to Chinese tourists as a payment option on First Data's Clover mini point of sale terminal and Verifone's e355 mPos device.
It marks Alipay's first foray into the US markets, a key shopping destination among Alipay's 450 million Chinese user base. Approximately two million of those users visit the US every year, according to figures from Alipay parent Ant Financial, with spending projected to reach $40 billion in 2017. Shopping is the number one tourist activity, with Chinese visitors projected to spend between $500 and $3,500 USD per trip.
“Scale, security and speed are important to us as we look to enable our customers to walk into a store while traveling abroad and pay for purchases with the Alipay App — just like they do here in China,” says Douglas Feagin, SVP of Ant Financial Services Group and head of Alipay International.
In Europe, Alipay has signed similar deals with Ingenico, Wirecard, and Zapper to put its mobile app into high street shopping terminals. Alongside the US, Verifone says it will also offer Alipay as an embedded payment option to users of its mPOS device in Europe.
Speaking at the Money 20/20 conference in Las Vegas, Feagin laid out a bold vision for Alipay's expansion into overseas markets. “Our goal is to expand our business from 450m users in China to over 2bn worldwide over the next decade,” he said. “We want to achieve over one million merchants outside of China over the next several years.”