Alipay, a globally leading payment and lifestyle platform operated by Ant Financial Services Group, and Worldline, the European leader in the payment and transactional services industry, announced the expansion of their long-lasting partnership today. The partnership aims to broaden the acceptance of Asian payment wallets across Europe.
As part of the enhanced partnership, Worldline will bring more Asian e-wallet users to Europe by allowing merchants’ point-of-sale (POS) systems to accept not only payments from Alipay’s proprietary wallet, but also from Alipay’s e-wallet partners across Asia. This multi-wallet acceptance will mean that merchants across Europe will see increased footfall and spend from tourists from all over Asia.
Alipay currently serves over 1.2 billion users together with local e-wallet partners in the Republic of Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.
“During China’s ‘Golden Week’ national holiday in October, we found that European countries continue to be among the top travel destinations for Chinese tourists.” says Karl Wehner, General Manager Germany, Switzerland, Austria Alibaba Group of which Alipay is a part of its ecosystem. “For us, this is a clear sign of the enormous potential for European merchants to connect to even more Asian tourists, and we aim to serve them with our innovative technology through our extended cooperation with our trusted partner Worldline.”
The UK, Germany, France and Italy led in popularity among Chinese tourists during the week-long holiday, while substantial growth was recorded in overall transaction volume and average spend per capita in countries such as Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland and the Nordics, according to Alipay’s analysis.
Roger Niederer, Chief Market Officer Merchant Services at Worldline, added: “Our vision is to create maximum simplicity for both merchants and their customers in order to provide a smooth payment journey. By expanding our partnership with Alipay, we unlock the potential of a new generation of Asian tourists for our merchants across Europe and service the global economy in a most efficient way.”
Alipay and Worldline look back to a proven partnership. Since the start of their cooperation in 2016, merchants from more than 20 European countries were connected to Alipay’s payment service, thus giving participants access to the growing number of Asian tourists travelling to Europe each year.
By using the fully integrated POS solution from Worldline, retail stores, hotels, restaurants and transport companies across Europe are able to accept payments made using the Alipay mobile app without any extra effort for their staff or the customer at the check-out. Transactions are fast, secure and the familiar customer journey is convenient for Asian tourists who visit Europe to shop and see the sights.
This simple acceptance solution is now expanded to Alipay’s e-wallet partners. These will be made available to merchant customers of Worldline in the near future.
