Alibaba has added Adyen as a processor, giving the Chinese e-commerce giant an added option to acquire merchants to feed its business for Chinese travelers.
Adyen will support Alibaba and its affiliated Alipay app for transactions on AliExpress, Taobao, Tmall and Alibaba.com brands.
Signage for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is displayed at the company's offices in Hong Kong, China, on Thursday, May 5, 2016. Alibaba's HK$1 billion fund for Hong Kong entrepreneurs is investing in GoGoVan, a hauling and delivery service that's one of the city's biggest startups, and other online services. Photographer: Justin Chin/Bloomberg
Justin Chin/Bloomberg
Ant, Alipay and Alibaba built their international business largely by acquiring local merchants through collaborations with payment processors.
Alibaba's Adyen announcement follows affiliate Ant Financial's $700 million acquisition of WordFirst, a London-based payments company, which gave Ant and its brands more of a foothold in Europe — and a counterplay against Amazon and Western Union's collaboration in the region.
Coming off of one of Europe's largest technology IPOs in 2018, Adyen has broadened its merchant reach through recent deals to support Interac's debit network in Canada and The Gap in Europe. Adyen's big coup in recent years was luring eBay's payment processing business away from PayPal in 2018.
Citizens Financial Group's promotion of Brendan Coughlin to company president comes at the same time as CFO John Woods prepares to leave for State Street. Both executives have been viewed as potential successors to CEO Bruce Van Saun.
The card network took a 3% stake in Corpay to improve international payment processing for corporate clients, while also pushing technology that aims to drastically reduce the need for human supervision of artificial intelligence.
President Donald Trump's shrinking of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau add to bankers' uncertainty into May.
