Uber has partnered with Alipay, the world’s largest third-party payments platform to allow Chinese travellers to book and pay for Uber rides from either the Uber or Alipay app, in all the cities where Uber operates.
Alipay has 450 million active users and is operated by Alibaba’s affiliate Ant Financial, which has very recently closed a $4.5 billion funding round and revealed that the money will be used to drive international growth.
“Alipay’s collaboration with Uber reflects a step forward of Ant Financial’s global strategy, and the collaboration also extends to the Alipay’s strategic global partners like Paytm in India. The collaboration aims to bring better experiences for our users globally,” Eric Jing, President of Ant Financial said.
This partnership works internationally, in 68 overseas countries and territories including the US, and 400+ cities across the world.
If an Alipay user is travelling outside China, they can open the Uber app, log-in and link to their current Alipay account.
In the Alipay app, users just have to click the ‘Uber’ image on the home screen to book a ride.
Uber users have been able to use Alipay to pay for their rides in the Chinese Mainland since 2014, and Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau since early 2016; but internationally it has been a more convoluted process. Until now, Chinese riders using the Uber app outside of China had to add a dual-currency credit card to their account, and were billed for their rides in U.S. dollars.
The partnership with Alipay will enable Uber riders to pay for their international rides directly in RMB using their connected Alipay accounts, eliminating the need for dual currency credit cards or currency conversion.
Alipay and Uber also announced an extension of their collaborative global expansion efforts in India, through a similar strategy and product integration between Alipay, Uber and Paytm.
“We want to bring better payment services to people in India and we are achieving our goals with technologies powered by Alipay,” said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, CEO and Founder of Paytm. “Leveraging the strategic partnership with Ant Financial, we look forward to working closely with more global partners like Uber to grow our influence in order to benefit our 126 million users.”
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