Alipay is the primary method of online and mobile transactions for Chinese consumers. It has over 600 million users worldwide who use the mobile wallet to purchase online, and is rapidly expanding into Latin America.
In March, Alipay announced that it would partner with Mexico’s Openpay to allow Alipay users to pay at any location that already accepts Openpay. Openpay allows cash transactions to be processed online and is already accepted at over 17,500 points of sale in Mexico. This decision comes in part because of a growing demand among Chinese consumers for Mexican products.
OpenPay’s COO, Eric Nuñez, commented in the original article for PYMNTS:
“Chinese shoppers represent an important and growing audience for our Mexico-based merchants. By enabling our merchants to offer Alipay, we are ensuring that Chinese shoppers visiting their websites can use a frictionless, familiar payment method. We see Alipay as the superhighway connecting merchants in Mexico with this growing and increasingly affluent consumer group.”
This partnership comes as part of a growing pattern of Chinese startups entering the Latin American market, based partially on similarities between the regions that make Chinese products particularly apt for a LatAm audience.
Read more about Chinese investment in Mexico: