Ant Group today announced the launch of Alipay+ Unified Payment. This major product upgrade provides a unified, scalable technical solution to help online and brick-and-mortar merchants collect money through all digital payment methods supported by Alipay+ in a more convenient and effective way.
Alipay+ offers a suite of innovative cross-border digital payments and marketing solutions, enabling merchants, especially small and medium-sized businesses, to better serve consumers worldwide. With this upgrade, Alipay+ Unified Payment further helps merchants directly reach over one billion consumers by making it easier for them to pay. Going forward, digital payment users in different countries can make cross-border payment with their local currencies wherever they see an Alipay+ sign, either online or offline, if the mobile payment methods they use adopt Alipay+ solutions.
After online merchants integrate Alipay+ Unified Payment, consumers will see an Alipay+ option when they make payments in their cashier pages. Cashiers will present users who choose to pay through Alipay+ recommended digital payment methods it supports based on their countries and payment preferences. Users can then proceed with paying using their preferred digital payment method. Brick-and-mortar merchants integrate Alipay+ Unified Payment by adopting a unified QR code scheme and scan-to-pay services, which can accept all digital payment methods enabled by Alipay+.
Alipay+ Unified Payment brings merchants highly efficient and cost-optimized digitalized cashier experiences. After one-time integration, merchants can accept all available digital payment methods, including existing methods and ones to be introduced by Alipay+ later on. Moreover, with innovative and digital-native technologies, Alipay+ can be integrated into merchants’ own systems with a simple technical adaption. Alipay+ Unified Payment also provides marketing services as part of its cashier solutions to help merchants expand the reach of targeted potential users.
Alipay+ Unified Payment began its pilot phase in May 2022. Merchants, including Buygogo, an e-commerce platform and Smile.one, one of the leading top-up services for online games and entertainment, have participated in the pilot program.
“We’re excited to launch Alipay+ Unified Payment, a one-stop solution integrating a wide range of digital payment methods. This upgrade helps merchants handle digital payments more conveniently and seamlessly, and greatly improves their operating efficiency,” said Cheng Guoming, General Manager of Alipay+ Global Partnership, Ant Group. “We are dedicated to leveraging our innovative products and technologies to better serve merchants around the world and facilitating even more cross-border business activities as the global economy recovers from the pandemic.”