North American Bancard Brings Alipay to Main Street Merchants

North American Bancard Holdings, LLC. (NAB), a multi-faceted and award-winning payment solutions provider, and Alipay, the world’s largest online and mobile payments platform boasting more than 520 million users in China and beyond, announced today that Alipay is now available on NAB’s wholly owned Electronic Payment Exchange (EPX) processing platform through a variety of NAB owned products, including gateways, terminals and mobile payment solutions.

“Alipay has realized tremendous adoption among Chinese nationals and has quickly become their preferred omni-channel payment method,” said Marc Gardner, president and CEO at NAB. “Our goal has always been to ensure that our merchants have every payment tool at their fingertips to attract customers both online and offline. Because of that, we are very pleased that Alipay decided to align with NAB to help enhance opportunities for merchants of all sizes, as millions of overseas customers continue to visit the U.S. every year.”

Alipay is operated by Ant Financial Services Group, a related company of Alibaba, and has been expanding rapidly inside and beyond China. Over 10 million brick-and-mortar merchants now accept Alipay across China. Alipay’s in-store payment service is covering more than 30 countries and supports 27 currencies.

Now, U.S. merchants of all sizes can benefit by offering Alipay as a payment type in their stores. The number of Chinese consumers visiting North America is predicted to grow to four million this year. In addition, the Chinese middle class is presently the single fastest-growing online consumer market in the world, estimated to grow to 600 million by 2020, and North American merchants will be well-positioned with this customer base if they are able to accept the preferred payment type of this consumer demographic whether in store, or online.

“Our priority is to ensure a safe, secure and reliable payment process for the millions of Chinese consumers who travel to North America or shop online from North America merchants,” said Souheil Badran, President of Alipay North America. “Through our strong partnership with NAB, over 120,000 of NAB’s PayAnywhere merchants are now enabled with Alipay which includes best-in-class support.”

Alipay is enabled on the EPX processing platform and will be accessible to independent software vendors (ISVs) wanting to integrate with the technology in December 2017. PayAnywhere users are able to use a camera, or barcode scanner, to accept Alipay through both the mobile app and PayAnywhere Storefront. By the end of 2017, Alipay acceptance will be rolled out to all of NAB’s semi-integrated MICROS terminals, along with their entire Ingenico terminal merchant base.

About North American Bancard Holdings

Headquartered in Troy, Michigan, North American Bancard Holdings, LLC. (NAB), is an award-winning leader in credit card processing - administering merchant services for client companies of all sizes. NAB executes solutions for payment processing including credit, debit, EBT, check conversion and guarantee, gift/loyalty cards and mobile purchasing. Founded and accredited as an MSP/ISO in 1992, NAB is committed to setting the benchmark for client service, competitive pricing, and the latest in technology to its client companies. With nearly $50 billion in payments processed, for more than 310,000 businesses, North American Bancard is dedicated to providing superior solutions for American businesses. For more information, please visit www.northamericanbancard.com.

About AliPay

Operated by Ant Financial Services Group, Alipay is the world’s largest mobile and online payment platform. Launched in 2004, Alipay currently has over 520 million active users and over 200 domestic financial institution partners. Alipay has evolved from a digital wallet to a lifestyle enabler. Users can hail a taxi, book a hotel, buy movie tickets, pay utility bills, make appointments with doctors, or purchase wealth management products directly from within the app. In addition to online payments, Alipay is expanding to in-store offline payments both inside and outside of China. Over 10 million brick-and-mortar merchants now accept Alipay across China. Alipay’s in-store payment service covers more than 30 countries across the world, and tax reimbursement via Alipay is supported in 24 countries and regions. Alipay works with over 250 overseas financial institutions and payment solution providers to enable cross-border payments for Chinese travelling overseas and overseas customers who purchase products from Chinese e-commerce sites. Alipay currently supports 27 currencies. Follow us on Twitter @antfinancial and @alipay.