China 101
Alipay
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Ant Group's payment and lifestyle app, originally built as the escrow layer for Taobao, which together with WeChat Pay forms China's mobile payment duopoly.
Alipay was created in 2004 by Alibaba as an escrow service: it held a buyer's money until the goods arrived, which solved the trust problem that nearly killed early Chinese e-commerce. It later spun out into Ant Group and became a full financial super app used by roughly a billion people.
Today Alipay and WeChat Pay are the two dominant ways to pay in mainland China. Both work by scanning QR codes, and both have expanded into wealth management, insurance, loans, transit passes, and utility bills. Street vendors, taxi drivers, and luxury malls all accept them.
For travelers, both apps now support linking international cards, which has made visiting China far easier than it was a few years ago. When an article mentions mobile payment in China, it almost always means one of these two apps.