 "We believe our partner can be more successful than us: Alipay on Paytm")
Speaking to Business Standard on the sidelines of a conference to launch an alliance between Alipay, Paytm and Uber here on Tuesday, Benny Chen, executive director, Global Strategic Partnership, Alipay, said, "We would ensure that we share the technology support for Paytm to grow. We would try to make sure that Paytm is using Alipay's technology experience to win the market and give better services to local consumers and that has been always our play with the company."
It is at Alibaba's boot camp in China that the top brass of Indian digital wallet-turned-e-commerce firm Paytm is learning the finer points of how to set up and run a successful payments bank.
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Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and CEO of One97 Communications which owns Paytm, had earlier said the Chinese e-commerce giant is training the top executives of Paytm ahead of its much-awaited payments bank launch in India. Alibaba Group is the largest shareholder in One97 Communications, with investments worth $680 million.
Ant Financial Services, an affiliate of Alibaba Group, runs MYbank, an online bank in China. "We are studying how MYbank works and trying to see how those things can be fitted into our payments banking system here," Sharma had said in an earlier interview.
Chen added that under the partnership they are providing all possible support to Paytm. "Our strategy for globalization is looking for partnership in the country, to bring in financial inclusion through technology and innovations in India. Paytm is very much the strategic partner for Alipay, so we have been helping each other sharing our best practices, technology, risk management among other things," he said.
Also Chen added that they are a part of Paytm's payments bank initiative which would soon launch in India. "We keep on supporting Paytm in the payments bank initiative. It is part of our financial inclusion strategy, it is in line with the vision of the two companies. Through different technology and innovations, more financial products can be offered to India consumers," Chen said.
On being asked if Alipay would venture into India alone, he said that Paytm would remain the strategic partner for the company in the country. "We always believe in the philosophy that our partner can be more successful than us, we do see a potential of Paytm to grow times bigger than what we have experienced in China. So with regarding to financial service area in India, the penetration of banking system is limited in this country, this offers Paytm a great opportunity to be more successful financial service provider in this country," he said. "I think the plan is to help our strategic partner Paytm to grow and there are a lot of things to do, the potential is huge."