NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Samsung announced today that it has cemented a deal that will make Alipay, China’s largest online payments platform, available through Samsung Pay.

The partnership, made between Samsung Electronics and Ant Financial, the Alibaba financial tech affiliate that owns Alipay,  is important because Alipay is one of the most formidable rivals mobile payments like Samsung Pay and Apple Pay face as they tackle the Chinese market.

Alipay, which claims about 450 million active registered users, launched the Alipay Wallet smartphone app, which stores credit card and coupon information and can be used for offline payments, back in 2013.

Samsung Pay expanded into China at the end of March, about six weeks after Apple Pay’s debut there.