First Data To Take Alipay Acceptance From Coasts To Entire U.S.

Expanding on an acceptance relationship that began last October at high-end merchant locations in California and New York, processor First Data Corp. on Tuesday said it will offer its 4 million U.S. merchants in-store acceptance of the Chinese online and mobile-payment service Alipay, which is used by 450 million people globally.

The new agreement further deepens the roots of Alipay parent company Ant Financial Services Group in the U.S. payments market. Ant plans to buy wire-transfer provider MoneyGram International Inc. for $1.2 billion, a deal that its subject to review by a federal panel that monitors foreign buyouts of American companies.

Alipay’s expanded merchant-acceptance agreement is mainly aimed at the estimated 4 million Chinese who visit the United States annually. First Data will roll out Alipay first with merchants that use its Clover line of point-of-sale and mobile devices.

“As Alipay’s popularity continues to spread beyond China, we are thrilled that Alipay chose First Data to support its acceptance for American businesses of all sizes,” Frank Bisignano, First Data’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “Through this agreement, we will be able to offer our unparalleled network of business clients a cutting-edge payment solution.”

First Data will route Alipay transactions through its newly acquired Acculynk unit for tokenization of Alipay’s QR code.

“Our goal is to extend reliable payment services to the over 4 million Chinese consumers that visit North America every year,” Souheil Badran, president of Alipay North America, said in a statement. “Extending our partnership with a premier partner like First Data provides the merchants with a seamless integration and access to consumers who want to continue paying with their lifestyle mobile app.”

In addition to the expansion of its in-store payment acceptance, Alipay’s mobile app supports money transfers and enables users to hail taxis, make hotel reservations, buy movie tickets and make doctor appointments from directly within the app.

Meanwhile, Alipay has been working with other U.S. payments players such as POS terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc. to expand its North American foothold. And in an effort to boost payment security, parent company Ant Financial bought EyeVerify, a Kansas City, Kan.-based developer of software for mobile devices that can match the blood vessels in users’ eyes with stored prints.

Ant Financial upped its original $880 million bid for MoneyGram last month to $1.2 billion after Leawood, Kan.-based Euronet Worldwide Inc. submitted an unsolicited $1 billion offer for Dallas-based MoneyGram. MoneyGram’s stockholders are scheduled to vote on the revised plan May 16.