WeChat and Alipay expand their spending power

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Two of China’s biggest digital payment services are partnered with US-based Stripe Inc., to increase online shopping options for Chinese customers.

Businesses that use Stripe can now accept Alipay and WeChat as payment methods on their websites, according to a statement from Stripe released on Monday.

Stripe provides software that lets businesses accept online payments.

“By deepening our existing partnership with Alipay, we’re enabling businesses around the world to instantly access the once-impenetrable Chinese consumer market,” said John Collison, president and co-founder of Stripe.

Alipay, part of Ant Financial, an Alibaba Group Holding Inc. affiliate, and Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat Pay, dominate the mobile-payments market in China with a combined 90% share.

They are estimated to have processed close to three trillion US dollars cumulatively in 2016, according to a UN report, which put Alipay slightly ahead of 1.7 trillion US dollars compared to 1.2 trillion US dollars for WeChat Pay.

Alipay is used by about half a billion Chinese shoppers. Its mobile wallet is already accepted by more than 100,000 retailers in 70 international markets.

The partnership with Stripe will aid Alibaba’s efforts to attract more US businesses and feed the Chinese consumer’s increasing appetite for foreign goods.