Alibaba has added Adyen as a processor, giving the Chinese e-commerce giant an added option to acquire merchants to feed its business for Chinese travelers.
Adyen will support Alibaba and its affiliated Alipay app for transactions on AliExpress, Taobao, Tmall and Alibaba.com brands.
Signage for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is displayed at the company's offices in Hong Kong, China, on Thursday, May 5, 2016. Alibaba's HK$1 billion fund for Hong Kong entrepreneurs is investing in GoGoVan, a hauling and delivery service that's one of the city's biggest startups, and other online services. Photographer: Justin Chin/Bloomberg
Justin Chin/Bloomberg
Ant, Alipay and Alibaba built their international business largely by acquiring local merchants through collaborations with payment processors.
Alibaba's Adyen announcement follows affiliate Ant Financial's $700 million acquisition of WordFirst, a London-based payments company, which gave Ant and its brands more of a foothold in Europe — and a counterplay against Amazon and Western Union's collaboration in the region.
Coming off of one of Europe's largest technology IPOs in 2018, Adyen has broadened its merchant reach through recent deals to support Interac's debit network in Canada and The Gap in Europe. Adyen's big coup in recent years was luring eBay's payment processing business away from PayPal in 2018.
The fintech's CEO told analysts during Thursday's earnings call that generative AI was taking search by storm and that investors "should absolutely expect us to have an answer for that."
