Alipay has partnered with three banks and a payment company for the expansion of its mobile payment service in the European region.

Alibaba's financial affiliate has teamed up with London-based Barclays PLC, France’s BNP Paribas SA, Italy’s UniCredit SpA, and Swiss firm SIX Payment Services. The deal will have an additional of 930,000 European merchants that will begin accepting Alipay as a form of payment.

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The Chinese e-commerce giant aims to expand globally, challenge industry leaders like Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., and target Chinese tourists and students living in the European region. According to World Travel & Tourism Council, Chinese tourists had spent around $215 billion abroad. 

Alipay dominates China with 450 million users. According to market research firm iResearch, it handles an estimated $738 billion from the spending of Chinese consumers. Alipay accounts are linked to their bank account that allows users to pay for a taxi, book a hotel room, buy movie tickets, and even invest in mutual funds.

“In terms of focus on Europe, we like to initially expand Alipay to be much more of a global product with global users. And we're going to do that step by step," Douglas Feagin, Senior Vice President of Ant Financial and President of Alipay International, said.

"Right now we are focused a lot on Asia with a partnership with PayTm in India … we'll look to expand that across Asia, then we'll look to Europe and the United States for future growth.” 

Alipay made its first European expansion in Germany in October 2015. It is now available and accepted in popular locations like London department store Harrods and Munich's airport. Moreover, the user can process tax refunds using Alipay in 23 European countries. 

According to Ant Financial, the company has an estimated 100,000 retailers in 70 countries and regions at the end of third quarter of 2016; the number excludes mainland China.

TagsAlipay, Alibaba, Ant Financial, mobile paymetn service, SIX Payment Services, e-commerce, apple pay, visa, MasterCard, Europe, china, Chinese Tourists