​ALIPAY ENTERS PARTNERSHIP WITH VTB TO EXPAND MERCHANT NETWORK IN RUSSIA

HANGZHOU, China, Aug 4 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Alipay, the world’s largest online and mobile payment platform and lifestyle super app operated by Ant Financial Services Group, today announced its partnership with VTB Group, one of Russia’s leading banking groups. VTB Group has recently started merchant acquiring for Alipay payments service in its over-120,000-POS-device network, which now makes VTB Group the biggest partner of Alipay in Russia. It is expected that more than 1 million Chinese travelers will benefit from the new partnership every year. The service will be launched shortly after a pilot program in August. Q3-Q4 2017 will see its roll-out to the whole VTB network of near 100,000 merchants. Alipay is the world’s largest online and mobile wallet with more than 520 million active users. For Chinese shoppers, the new partnership will lead to more convenience and safety during their trips to Russia, and Russian merchants will have the ability to use all the value added marketing functions the system provides. For shops and restaurants, it means promising an increase of conversion rates, average ticket size and turnover. According to an estimation of VTB24, the VTB Group’s retail banking arm, Alipay will be in high demand in Moscow, St Petersburg, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Blagoveshchensk and Irkutsk. “We see the number of Chinese tourists is increasingly growing,” said Alexey Kirichek, VP, Director of Merchant Acquiring Department, VTB24. "Potential volume of this market is approximately 300 billion rubles per year. Average ticket size of Alipay users is 2-3 times higher than in other payment methods, hence we expect high demand for the new service from merchants.” “For Alipay, it’s very important to get support from one of the largest banks in Russia. Large-scale acceptance of Alipay on the whole POS infrastructure of VTB24 will allow us to speed up and facilitate the launch of our service at merchants and enable country level coverage,” said Bogdan Zadorozhny, Alipay’s Business Development Director for Russia.  http://mrem.bernama.com/viewsm.php?idm=29750