How online-payment service Alipay will 'revolutionize' retail; PayPal-like system allows Chinese consumers to shop on the internet with currency instead of credit cards.(The World)

Advertising Age, October, 2007 by Madden, Normandy

Byline: NORMANDY MADDEN

[hong kong] China's largest e-commerce company just launched an online-payment service that for the first time makes it easy for millions of middle-class Chinese to shop online anywhere in the world.

Alipay originally was developed by Alibaba Corp. for its own business-to-business flagship site, Alibaba.com. Later, Alipay was used for Alibaba consumer site Taobao.com. Alipay is similar to global online-payment services such as eBay's PayPal but until now has handled transactions only in local currency. Through a partnership with two Chinese banks, it now facilitates transactions in 12 foreign currencies, including U.S. dollars, Japanese yen and euros.

That makes Alipay "the biggest retail story in China in the last...