Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial has signed a deal with payment processor First Data to expand their mobile payment service Alipay into the US, reports TechCrunch.
The deal will allow customers to use the Alipay service at point-of-sale with more than four million retail partners in the US and marks Alipay’s first foray into the US market. The expansion into the already established US payment system will likely target overseas Chinese customers without significantly impacting US competitors for the time being.
Ant Financial’s global expansion has already seen deals made in Korea, India, The Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. The US deal comes amid the firm’s bid to acquire US cross-border money transfer service MoneyGram.