American Express has joined with Chinese digital wallet behemoth Alipay in China to accelerate expansion in the fastest-growing card market in the world.
Amex customers can now add their credit cards to Alipay digital wallets, the card company said in a news release Tuesday. Alipay, a unit of the Chinese company Alibaba Group, has become a major digital payments provider since it was launched in that country about a decade ago.
The Amex move comes as worldwide card use is expected to jump 43% worldwide by 2029, with the Asia-Pacific region experiencing the biggest increase — 46.8%, compared to 27% for the U.S., according to January report from the research firm Nilson Report. China is the world’s second most populous country behind India.
New York-Based American Express became the first non-Chinese company to receive a license in that country to clear local currency card transactions via its own network in 2020. Amex first sought approval to process transactions in China in 2018. Prior to that it was forced to process payments there through a partnership with Chinese state-controlled companies, such as UnionPay, CNN reported in 2018.
Purchase, New York-based Mastercard also received initial approval to operate in China in 2020, and began processing transactions three years later after a meeting between then-President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Mastercard also let customers link their cards to the Alipay digital wallet in June 2023.
Visa, the largest U.S. card network, applied for a license to clear Chinese currency transactions in 2020. The San Francisco-based card network is still working with the Chinese government to obtain the license, the company said in its 2024 annual report. A Visa spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Alipay is based in Hangzhou, China, and was founded in 2004 as a subsidiary of the Alibaba, established by Chinese entrepreneur Jack Ma.
The digital wallet provider also offers a mobile banking app and is available in Asian countries such as Thailand and South Korea.
Alipay's website says it is accepted by 80 million merchants in China. A company spokesperson did not respond to a message asking about what major Chinese merchants accept Alipay.
The service is not available for anyone who holds an American Express card issued by a third party outside the Chinese mainland, the release says in a footnote. That would preclude many foreigners living or traveling in China who use AmEx cards issued in their own nation.
The release also does not say when the partnership began, and an Amex spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
