A Russian Alipay?

You may look like a man from Mars if you don’t know Alipay in China. Alipay has increasingly become dominating in the mobile payment system widely used in China that is so convenient that is poised to kill all the cash transactions. This is one of the top secretes Jack Ma has created for Alibaba that may has a far-reaching impact in the global scale. The Alipay success in China makes me think about another dominating payment system widely used in Russia, since I’m taking about buying Russia stocks in general. It is a company called QiWi.

No, by no means I think QiWi has the functionality as Alipay and I’m not aware of anything even near to that in Russia. But QiWi is the one to provide many financial services in Russia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Belarus, and even the United Arab Emirates. These are still the areas that  are so financially underdeveloped and lagging far behind in the Western standards. QiWi is helping to bridge some gap and may likely become the next Alipay over there if the trend continues. You see, QiWi has partnered with eBay and is planning to integrate QIWI's next-generation payment system, Visa QiWi Wallet, as a payment option on eBay in Russia. This is a strategic move for QiWi to develop high-tech solutions for online electronic payments. I’m even thinking that Jack Ma is probably also targeting Russia to establish his next footstep as part of ambition to globalize Alipay. If this is indeed the plan, I won’t be surprised to hear an announcement that BaBa is teamed up with QiWi to develop an Alipay like cashless payment system for Russia. I like the prospects for QiWi, especially in the context of likely good surprises from Russia as a whole with further economic improvement and the catchup in the mobile business.