Alipay
Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma launched Alipay, a third-party mobile and online payment platform, in Hangzhou, China in February 2004. Although Ant Financial, Alipay's parent firm, is still headquartered in Hangzhou, the company shifted its headquarters to Pudong in Shanghai in 2015. In 2013, Alipay surpassed PayPal to become the biggest mobile (digital) payment platform in the world.
In mainland China, Alipay currently holds a 55.32% market share for third-party payments, according to figures from the fourth quarter of 2018. With more than 700 million unique users and more than 1.3 billion annual active users as of June 2020, it has grown to become the dominant force in China's mobile payment industry. With 80 million merchants utilizing Alipay for commerce, it handled $17 trillion in transactions in mainland China over the course of a year.
Through an escrow-like service, Alipay offers consumers and companies safe, simple, and speedy online payments. Foreign businesses must pay a USD 1000 setup charge and transaction fees ranging from 2.5% to 3% to set up Alipay. The upfront payment for Chinese-registered businesses is free, but they must still pay transaction costs of 0.7 to 1.2%. Do you know that thanks to its cutting-edge e-commerce payment technology and sophisticated risk management system, Alipay has currently successfully worked with nearly all of China's top banks as well as Visa and other financial institutions!
Currently, Alipay offers its users a wide range of utility services, such as paying with a QR code, paying credit card bills, managing bank accounts, recharging mobile phones, buying bus and train tickets, ordering food, renting a car, paying insurance premiums, storing digital copies of identification documents, paying water and electricity bills, paying traffic fines, paying property taxes, paying cable TV fees, paying taxi fares, etc. Alipay definitely deserves to be the standard-bearer among Chinese payment apps given its wide range of services, security, and ease of use.
Founded: February 2004
Headquarter: Pudong, Shanghai, China
Website: www.alipay.com
