VTB Group started merchant acquiring for Alipay payments service in its over-120,000 POS-device network. It is expected that more than 1 million Chinese travellers will have access to mobile payments through the popular app. According to an estimation of VTB24, the VTB Groups retail banking arm, Alipay will be in high demand in Moscow, St Petersburg, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Blagoveshchensk and Irkutsk.
The service will be launched shortly after a pilot program in August 2017. Q3-Q4 2017 will see its roll-out to the whole VTB network of near 100,000 merchants.
Alipay has been expanding to in-store offline payments both inside and outside of China. It is accepted in over 30 countries and regions, with in-store payments covering more than 200,000 retail stores. In Europe, many merchants want to add the payment options due to the increasing number of Chinese tourists visiting the continent.
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