The new head of Ant Financial’s international operations hopes to one day offer its Alipay ewallet services to European consumers, after signing deals on Tuesday with four financial groups that will allow its 450m Chinese customers to pay for more goods in the region.
“120m Chinese travellers went abroad in 2015 and that’s growing at 18 per cent a year. The vast majority of whom use Alipay,” Doug Feagin told the Financial Times after signing deals with BNP Paribas in France, Barclays in the UK, UniCredit in Italy and SIX Group in Switzerland.
“The first part of our international mission is enabling them to buy things with Alipay,” Mr Feagin said.