(18 April 2017 – Europe) ACI Worldwide, a global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, has announced that it has expanded its relationship with Alipay, China’s largest mobile payment provider operated by Ant Financial Services Group, to enable merchants across Europe, the Middle East and Africa to accept Alipay payments from Chinese shoppers.
The platform allows merchants to send relevant information and offers to Chinese consumers as they arrive in a country, attracting them to stores, restaurants, attractions and other locations of interest.
This builds upon the pair’s long-standing relationship and allows merchants to provide an omni-channel experience, tying together eCommerce, mCommerce and in-store payment capabilities.
“The Alipay platform has a highly engaged user base in China. We’re pleased to be able to offer this growing base a ‘home-away-from-home’ experience, while giving merchants the ability to push relevant offers and information directly to them,” said Rita Liu, Head of Alipay Europe, Middle East and Africa.
“We are proud to partner with the largest mobile payment platform in the world, to bring an innovative omni-channel solution to merchants and the payments service providers that support them across many countries where Chinese tourism continues to rapidly increase,” said Markus Rinderer, senior vice president, Merchant Solutions, ACI Worldwide.
“Transforming the experience for Chinese shoppers—and making it face-to-face without any barriers—brings value to all parties concerned, and supports our vision of enabling universal connectivity across the payments ecosystem,” he added.
Alipay controls around 60 percent of the Chinese market share for mobile wallets, with more than 450 million Chinese consumers actively using the service, and over 2 million brick-and-mortar merchants accepting Alipay across China.
According to ACI Worldwide, it provided electronic payments to more than 5,100 organisations around the world. More than 1,000 of the largest financial institutions and intermediaries, as well as thousands of global merchants, rely on ACI to execute US$14 trillion each day in payments and securities.