Ant Financial, an affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, will start allowing third-party vendors to offer services such as food delivery and hotel bookings on its Alipay mobile payment platform in an expansion beyond its financial services focus.
Alipay traditionally competes against Tencent Holding’s WeChat pay in China for mobile payments and financial services, with users using both apps daily for tasks such as paying bills, buying groceries or booking taxis.
But Alipay said on Tuesday it plans to start allowing third-party vendors that offer services like retail, food and healthcare on its platform, moving into a realm that analysts say will pit it more firmly against on-demand service giant Meituan Dianping’s “super-app”.
Alipay said it planned to help 40 million vendors “digitize” their services over the next three years by enabling them to open “mini-programs” on Alipay. This in turn will allow the vendors to tap its 900 million-strong user base in China.
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