Alipay’s Global Expansion Bolsters Mexican Mobile Payments Operations

Just yesterday, we got word of Alipay’s latest expansion efforts by way of the Shoptalk show, but that wasn’t all the expansion the company had in mind. Just one day later, they dropped new word our way about what else the company had in mind, and this time, it was a focus on the Mexican mobile payment market.

A previously-established partnership with Openpay in Mexico served as the beachhead Alipay needed to make a further push in Mexico, and so, it expanded its operations with Openpay to produce the desired result. Now, businesses that currently accept Openpay in Mexico will be able to take Alipay, and that will open up a wide range of options for the growing Chinese tourist class who happens to be hitting Mexico for its travel plans.

Since Openpay counts over 17,500 points of sale to its network, that’s going to mean a lot of new options for those travelers. Better yet, it’s going to mean quite a slug of potential new business for those points of sale, thanks to the sheer size of the Chinese tourist class. Alipay, after all, counts over 600 million active users to its credit, or just under twice the size of the entire United States.

Alipay Americas president Souheil Badran noted “…Our partnership with Openpay not only connects Mexican merchants with Chinese consumers seeking their products and services, but also opens new revenue channels for merchants in Mexico. We are thrilled to be partnering with Openpay as we continue to expand the reach of Alipay throughout the Americas.”

It might seem surprising that Chinese tourists would be interested in visiting Mexico, but there are plenty of places there that do a brisk tourist trade. Places like Cozumel and Cancun are well-known Mexican tourist destinations, and there are plenty of others besides. So for Alipay to step in and establish a presence makes sense: it continues in the now-well-established vein of offering the Chinese tourist a familiar and easy-to-use mobile payments interface, and gives the local merchant the opportunity to reach this potentially lucrative new trade.

It’s getting to be a familiar chorus by now, but Alipay’s expansion is continuing unabated. Soon, most anywhere Chinese tourists could go, they’ll be greeted with some variant on “Alipay accepted here.”