Despite a growing Internet-savvy middle class, online purchases in China have been slow to take off with traditional payment systems. Credit card-based payment systems that succeeded in North America and Europe have proven ineffective in China, where credit card usage remains low. Even more important than credit card penetration rates, is the issue of trust between buyers and sellers in a business environment where personal relationships and cash-based transactions have served as the traditional means of securing and settling a deal.

A member of the Alibaba Group, AliPay enables individuals and businesses to securely, easily and quickly send and receive payments online. AliPay works like an escrow service, solving the issue of settlement risk in China. AliPay’s products and services are built on trust. Not only does AliPay guarantee the safety of each online transaction, it helps Internet users create their own trust profile which fosters a safe online payment environment.

AliPay is China’s leading online payment service by both number of users and total transaction volume. Since its launch in 2004, AliPay has become the most popular and extensively used online payment tool for all areas of e-commerce in China, and is fast becoming the industry standard. As of 20 Dec 2007, AliPay had more than 62 million users and a daily transaction volume exceeding 31 million Euro, through more than 1.350.000 daily transactions.

AliPay continues to extend is leadership in online payments to merchants outside of the Alibaba and Taobao marketplaces, with more than 300,000 external merchants using AliPay as their preferred online payment platform, including leading local brands Lenovo, CCTV, Aigo, and New Oriental. To provide service, Alipay has partnered with all the leading banks in China, including Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, as well as Visa and other financial institutions. AliPay has received the endorsement of traditional banks and financial institutions, because of its advanced e-commerce payment technology and sophisticated risk management system.

AliPay can handle transactions in 12 major currencies, such as GBP, HKD, USD, CHF, SGD, Skr, Nkr, Dkr, JPY, CAD, AUD ,Euros. “Up until now, the Chinese internet payment market has remained largely off-limits to companies wishing to do business quickly and securely. We are now able to offer our clients the possibility to also accept China’s most popular payment method in their online store“, says Ido Schiferli, ChronoPay’s Head of Partnership Development, “AliPay is designed to overcome the online payment hurdles with a model specific to China's needs.

“ChronoPay will continue to work on relationships with local payment providers. Last year we signed agreements with MoneyBookers in Europe, Yandex Money and WebMoney in Russia. Now we are very glad to begin working with the Alibaba Group in China. This international network help us to build a real global e-commerce market and will open new possibilities for all internet merchants.”, said ChronoPay’s vice-president Dmitry Shmakov.

“Alipay enables sellers from all over the world to accept payments from consumers from the Chinese mainland via a simple, secure and speedy way. On the basis of successful settlement of overseas payment bottleneck, it helps overseas merchants to get access to the promising and dynamic Chinese e-commerce market.” said Simon Hu, assistant president of Alipay.com Co., Ltd. “It is natural to extend our services to Europe as Alipay is the most popular online payment system in China at present and we hope our business can be done without geographical restrictions.”

In the near future AliPay and ChronoPay will explore further possibilities in order to extent their cooperation.

About AliPay

AliPay.com Co.,Ltd (AliPay) is China’s leading online payment service by both number of users and total transaction volume. A member of the Alibaba Group, it enables individuals and businesses to securely, easily and quickly send and receive payments online. AliPay works like an escrow service, solving the issue of settlement risk in China. Since its launch in 2004, AliPay has become the most popular and extensively used online payment tool for all areas of e-commerce in China, and is fast becoming the industry standard. As of 20 Dec 2007, AliPay had more than 62 million users and a daily transaction volume exceeding 31 million Euro, through more than 1,350,000 daily transactions. AliPay was launched in 2004 by global e-commerce leader, and China's largest e-commerce company, the Alibaba Group, which also owns Alibaba.com, Taobao, Yahoo! China and Alisoft.

For more information please visit www.AliPay.com