Payment platforms step up global expansion

Eyeing the opportunity, some Chinese payment service providers are already stepping up their expansion abroad, such as UnionPay, which has been available in many Japanese shopping malls and convenience stores as well as e-commerce giants such as Rakuten Inc and Yahoo! Shopping Japan.

Alipay, the rising popular online payment platform, certainly doesn't want to miss out on the action.

The payment tool is now available in more than 50,000 hotels, shopping malls and convenience stores overseas, and tax refunds can also be conducted via Alipay in 24 countries.

Online payment is getting more popular than ever in China, and even my mother does her daily grocery shopping with a scan of the code rather than a handful of cash. So for Alipay, whose presence in China's major cities is gradually stabilizing, expanding its business overseas is definitely one of the main directions for the e-commerce giant.

However, I believe Alipay's expansion overseas has broader horizons than just Chinese people traveling abroad.

With the assistance of the increasing number of Chinese outbound tourists, who will help promote Alipay's brand overseas, it is believed Alipay will gradually bring itself wider acceptance among overseas users, just as UnionPay did abroad by courting the favor of both Chinese abroad and foreign users with its subsidiaries and preferential payment policies.

So the battle for travel-related spending is likely to get fiercer as some payment platforms such as Alipay and UnionPay are also pushing forward their overseas expansion.

Together with its domestic rivals including Tencent Holdings Ltd' WeChat payment, international rivals like PayPal Inc and Apple Inc's Apple Pay will make the battle even fiercer.

The tough battle is likely to end up with more payment subsidiaries and discounts, definitely a favorable result for overseas shopaholics like me.