Alipay.com may come to India

MUMBAI, INDIA: Alipay.com, the Alibaba Group company, which offers third-party online payment facility to individuals and small businesses in China, may initiate its operations in India over the next year or so.

In this regard, Alipay.com may approach the Indian government and authorities for acquiring payment license in the country, said Brain Wong, Alibaba.com's vice president — Global Sales and Service.

“The regulations of payments and currency conversions policy are bit cumbersome in India, so it would take around 6-9 months in the process to get the payment license. However, the final decision about the operations in India would be taken by the management,” Wong told CyberMedia News in Mumbai during an interaction.

Wong, however, stressed that the management is more focused and keen to strengthen Alibaba.com in India rather than Alipay.com. The online payment portal had over 550 million registered users in China as of December 2010 and facilitated around 8.5 million transactions daily.

In fact, Alibaba.com, the e-commerce portal for small businesses, has claimed India to be its second largest supplier market after China, with over 2 million registered customers as on March 31, 2011.

Given this rapid growth of users in India, the possibility of Alipay.com offering its third-party online payment facility cannot be ruled out.