Uber has teamed up with Alipay to allow passengers from China to pay for international Uber rides in Chinese yuan using their Alipay accounts.
Alipay has been available as a payment option for Uber in China since 2014. However, Chinese travelers who wish to use the Uber service outside of mainland China require dual currency credit cards or currency conversions.
The new deal aims to make the Uber service more accessible to Chinese travelers by doing away with this requirement.
Uber’s head of business for Asia Pacific Eric Alexander told Economic Times that the partnership with Alipay will enable Uber to cater to the growing number of Chinese travelers who use Uber internationally. Alexander expects the integration to grow the number of rides taken by 9 to 10 times globally. Alipay’s userbase numbers 450 million.
Alipay’s parent company, Alibaba, is an investor in Didi Kuaidi, Uber’s competitor in China.
The partnership is also expected to affect Uber users from India due to Alipay’s partnership with Paytm, a mobile wallet and e-commerce operator in India.
The latter is expected to integrate the Uber app into its own mobile app in the coming month.
With the Paytm integration, riders in India will be able to use the Paytm app to hail Uber rides globally and pay for the service in their domestic currency.
The integration is targeted at enabling passengers with no credit cards to use the Uber service internationally.