Alibaba’s payment provider launches in Australia

Alibaba’s newest partnership is further expanding the global reach of mobile payments.



Alipay, a digital wallet payment platform run by Alibaba's affiliate Ant Financial, and Quest Payment Systems Pty Ltd, an Australian payments provider, are teaming up to roll out Alipay at select stores in Australia. The digital wallet, which is currently used by Chinese nationals to pay for in-store purchases using their mobile phones, is now available at select stores within The Chemist Warehouse and My Chemist pharmacy groups.



Quest has designed the software to fully integrate with existing point-of-sale (POS) systems, enabling the terminal to convert currency and process Alipay transactions. Alipay customers simply scan a code displayed on the payment terminal’s screen, which enables them to pay from their mobile phone.



“Quest added the Alipay solution without the need to change our POS software or require additional hardware,” explained Mark Finocchiario, managing partner and director, My Chemist. “We’ve been able to maintain our existing payment and reconciliation processes, minimizing change for our operators, and enabling us to offer this convenient feature to our Chinese shoppers.”



The pharmacy groups have full rollouts planned for early 2017.



The pilot, which makes Chemist Warehouse the largest overseas e-commerce vendor connected to Alipay, also enables the retailers to participate in Alipay’s 12.12 event, a global promotion that offers in-store incentives to Alipay users. Chemist Warehouse participated in the recent 11.11 online global shopping festival, and experienced a significant increase in sales to new Chinese customers, Alipay said.