New | AliPay and TenPay set for clash with UnionPay
With aggressive expansion in Hong Kong, new point-of-sale services for mainland shoppers are taking a swipe at state-backed credit-card issuer
When Ma Lanzhen arrived in Hong Kong last week, she came ready to spend.
The 19-year-old from Hunan province carried both a China UnionPay-issued credit card and had equipped her mobile phone with an AliPay Wallet so she could buy as many blouses and spring skirts as she could carry.
"I've used the card a lot. I'd like to use AliPay but I haven't been in a shop that accepts it yet," Ma said, pulling a suitcase full of shopping spoils through Causeway Bay's Times Square mall.
AliPay would like Ma to use its mobile payment service in Hong Kong, too. The company, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, is pushing aggressively into the city's shops with its mobile wallet, which can make payments at the point of sale through mobile phones. AliPay launched a major advertising campaign in Hong Kong early this year and touts a host of new shopping venues where it can be used.
Slowly, it and other companies such as Tencent Holdings' TenPay are beginning to take a swipe at the international payment services of UnionPay, the mainland's sole credit-card issuer owned by a consortium of state banks and the country's central bank.
"With the expansion strategy, it will be inevitable they will compete with other payment processors operating locally and globally, and also with banks which have invested significantly in the payment space," said Albert Chan, the head of Accenture's financial services practice in China.