Apple Retail Stores in China to Accept Alipay Mobile Payments

[MacRumors]

Alipay, the mobile payment system offered by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, will soon be accepted in Apple retail stores across China, making it the first third-party mobile payment system to be accepted at brick-and-mortar Apple stores anywhere in the world (via Reuters).

The partnership with Apple was announced in a statement on Wednesday by Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial, which runs Alipay. Apple's regional China website, iTunes Store, and App Store have accepted Alipay for over a year, but Apple has now agreed to accept Alipay payments across all of its 41 local retail stores in the country, where Apple Pay has thus far received a lukewarm reception.

Alipay is China's most used mobile payment platform, but Alibaba is looking to keep one step ahead of Tencent Holdings' rival digital payment system, which is integrated into hugely popular chat app WeChat.

Reports of discussions about a potential partnership between Apple and Alibaba date back to November 2014, when the idea of integrating Alibaba's Alipay with Apple Pay was first considered as a more comprehensive mobile payments solution for the Chinese market.

Article Link: Apple Retail Stores in China to Accept Alipay Mobile Payments

 

[iZac]

I don't even take my wallet or cash with me anymore, due to the prevalence of Alipay and WeChat pay in the China market. It's the single best thing about living in SH.

 

[dontwalkhand]

I don't even take my wallet or cash with me anymore, due to the prevalence of Alipay and WeChat pay in the China market. It's the single best thing about living in SH.

The thing that scares me about these systems is what scares me about US payment systems, a QR code instead of more secure NFC

Also LOL cash. I’m in US and haven’t used that since 1999. We just use debit cards for everything.

 

[Mansu944]

Damn, Apple will just bend over for anything China won’t they.

 

[EvanEiga]

I don't even take my wallet or cash with me anymore, due to the prevalence of Alipay and WeChat pay in the China market. It's the single best thing about living in SH.

Second that. I recently spent a year in Shanghai and its amazing how I didn't need a wallet. I still carried a card case with me so if I need to make big purchases or spend a crazy amount of money for some random stuff, I have my Chase Sapphire Card. I've only used it a handful of times though (days right before pay day to use it to pay for company lunches and have my colleagues pay me back in RMB, so I would get some cash haha)