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

Thursday, May 14, 2015

The world of mobile payments in China keeps heating up.

Walmart said Wednesday that it’s teaming with Alipay, Alibaba’s financial partner, to bring mobile payments to 25 Walmart-owned stores in Shenzhen. Customers at those stores can now make purchases using the Alipay Wallet app, a leading mobile-payment tool in China that’s similar to Apple Pay or Google Wallet. A Walmart representative said the company expects to expand the service to more of its roughly 400 Walmart and Sam’s Club stores in the country.

Alipay is the payments affiliate of Alibaba — China’s biggest e-commerce company — handling transactions for Alibaba in a similar way to how PayPal handles eBay’s sales. Alipay, which claims 300 million registered users, is controlled by Alibaba’s founder and chairman, Jack Ma.