The MOU aims to forge joint efforts to establish an enhanced e-Commerce environment to benefit consumers and small businesses within and outside China. The two parties have also agreed to jointly address issues of common interests, including a strong mutual commitment to help combat intellectual property infringement.

As leaders in their respective industries, both companies believe that innovation and collaboration are the drivers of development in e-Commerce, and are committed to fostering an enhanced e-Commerce environment that provides a safe and efficient payment experience for users of Alibaba Group's platforms such as AliExpress and its affiliate Alipay. Both parties have agreed to cooperate on innovations including cross-border payments, acceptance, security and risk management as well as with MasterPass, the MasterCard digital service that allows consumers to use any payment card or enabled device to discover enhanced shopping experiences.

"MasterCard and Alibaba Group have fostered a strong collaboration in the area of e-Commerce in the past years, which includes integration of Alipay into the global payment solution of DataCash, joint promotions with AliExpress, as well as efforts in building an anti-piracy mechanism. This MOU is another significant step in the joint effort to drive the innovation and development of e-Commerce in China. We are looking forward to seeing fruitful results from these collaborations," said Ling Hai, division president of Greater China, MasterCard.

"We are delighted to continue our collaboration with MasterCard and take it to a deeper level. Alibaba Group and its affiliate Alipay will seek to work with MasterCard on a number of innovative services in order to provide an enhanced shopping experience to consumers as well as a better online business environment to small businesses in and outside China," said Lucy Peng, CEO of Alibaba Small and Micro Financial Services Group.