Alipay beyond China: Everything you need to know

Ant Financial has entered a deal to acquire London payment company WorldFirst for about $700 million, giving its affiliate Alibaba and its mobile wallet Alipay a deeper hold in European markets and countering a potential money transfer play by Amazon and Western Union's collaboration, which is just starting to add countries.

The price is in line with earlier estimates and the deal is not a surprise, given WorldFirst recently announced it would close its U.S. operations, a move considered to be a hedge against U.S. regulatory pressure. Ant's earlier attempt to buy MoneyGram fell through because of political pressure, though MoneyGram still supports Alipay.

WorldFirst will keep its brand and operate as a U.K.-headquartered business, and will gain access to Alipay's customer base of more than 550 million people and a substantial merchant network in Europe that already accepts Alipay.

Perhaps foreshadowing its failure to buy MoneyGram due to anti-China attitudes, Alipay came to the U.S. with a message designed to sound as unthreatening as possible to U.S. interests.

“Our whole goal in North America is to expand convenience for Alipay’s existing users wherever they go, and improving their shopping options so it’s easy for them to find other places to go—the last thing we’d want to do is go up against the third-party wallets in the U.S.,” said Souheil Badran, former president of Alipay North America, in 2017. Badran held that role from 2016 to 2018.

True to this statement, Alipay's U.S. deals focused on merchants who cater to Chinese tourists, such as 99 Ranch Market, a 50-store chain of supermarkets specializing in Asian products and food. One of Alipay’s first big integrations with a Chinese products specialist was a deal announced in 2017 with Han Feng, which serves Chinese supermarkets and restaurants on the U.S.’s east coast.

Alipay also works with travel-focused brands like the luxury travel retailer DFS Group, which launched Alipay's in-store mobile payment service in its Honolulu International Airport store in 2017. The Honolulu deployment followed Alipay's launch at San Francisco International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport and Kennedy International Airport in 2016.

Alipay users consult the mobile app an average of 14 to 15 times a day, and each visit generates data. Alipay captures this data and plows it back into the app to sharpen the experience for consumers and merchants, Badran said during a keynote speech at SourceMedia’s PayThink conference in 2017.

“Whenever someone opens the Alipay app, we track it, so we can let merchants know where users are and we can notify Alipay users of nearby services, with deals and coupons, based on their location,” Badran said.

Alipay’s data engines analyze travelers’ activity with the app before, during and after their international trips, anticipating their plans and purchases, providing tips, reviews and even detailed descriptions and maps of stores users intend to visit.

“If an Alipay user is heading to San Francisco, we can offer them a coupon for a deal at Pier 39, so we may see a conversion rate of up to 42% on that coupon before they even go on the trip,” Badran said.

Alipay also monitors weather, sports and world political events to shape its deals and offers, and encourages users to share feedback about the stores, restaurants and sites they visit.

“We want consumers to think of Alipay as a digital lifestyle, and data analysis is a big part of that,” Badran said.