Alipay

Alipay (Hangzhou) Technology Co. Ltd

About this app

Alipay is a leading open platform for payments and digital services in China.

Users with a Chinese ID and bank account can use Alipay to make payments online and in person at various merchants outside of China as they travel for leisure, business, or study.

Foreign visitors to China can connect their credit card to take advantage of Alipay’s widespread acceptance by tens of millions of merchants across the country. Alipay is not designed or intended for use by foreign users in their home country or anywhere outside of China.

Ratings and reviews

Don't bother. It's going to force you to input lots of personal information including your photograph, photo of your passport, your bank account information, a credit card number, etc. and then it's going to tell you something went wrong, or you will be automatically rejected. If you try again a few times, your account is going to be suspended. This pertains to adding a bank card and also trying to apply for tour card.

absolutely rubbish app. for such an essential app to travel in China, it is filled with glitches. The verification itself was very troublesome. During the capture of the verification photo, the camera is set to go off by itself even though your face is not in the frame. it captured only my forehead, and sent the picture without any options for retaking. now my identity cannot be verified and I am not able to use the app. worse of all, the support and help only speaks Chinese and can't help.

Difficult to get payment card set up. Wouldn't accept my phone number so had to use someone else's secondary number. Occasionally still gives prompts in Chinese, though making payments is mostly in English. Anxiety inducing as you've no idea if it'll work to make payments before you actually get to China. But it worked fine when in the country. First payment took ages as it needed validation from the bank, then others were simpler. Still no way it's any quicker than simply tapping a card.

What’s new

Update to the new version to get better user experience.