Alipay Vs. Paypal

A few years ago, I pay for utilities-water, electricity, and home internet bill by separate banks, handed cash to a teller. And today, I uses the Alipay app which is China's most popular online payment service on my smartphone to transfer money directly to account, and pay for utilities as well. Even I can keep savings in my Alipay Yu'ebao money market account, it can be accrues higher interest than in a traditional bank account.

 

The Alipay payment system works much like Paypal, but Alipay invades Paypal turf with offering for U.S. retailers right now. It is launching a service for U.S. retailers called ePass, Alipay has alreday been working in beta mode with retailers such as luxury deal site Gilt.com, The Gap and H&M.

                           

Otherwise, Alipay and Paypal user's experience is quite different. Paypal is best known as a payment option, a screen you may reach at the end of a transaction on a retail website, but with Alipay, customers can go directly to its app and website to make payments, check their investments, or buy movie or plane tickets. Alipay is for people who have quickly gotten used to using their mobile phone for everything.

Go back to see Paypal, Paypal is battling for a space dominated by the massive Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba group. Paypal currently handles cross-border sales between Chinese merchants and foreign consumers, but is not in the more lucrative business of handling transactions between buyers and sellers within China.