China’s Alipay Launches New Open Platform Model

Alipay, the third-party Internet payment subsidiary of Alibaba Group in China, has announced the launch of a new strategy to open its platform to external service providers.

According to reports in local media, Alipay will not only open its applications to individual and corporate developers, but also will release its lifestyle applications to enlarge its platform coverage, and to provide basic payment services to the online lifestyle sector.

Wang Gang, general manager for the business division of Alipay, said that application developers have technologies and products, but they are short of marketing channels and mature business models. Alipay will offer a profit-sharing system as well as development and technology support to developers; meanwhile, it will provide financial support to special developers. However, Alipay did not reveal the detailed profit-sharing ratio yet.

At present, Alipay reportedly has over 500 million registered users and 460,000 vendors.