中国向境外机构开放支付系统，或将推动支付宝与苹果联姻

    上周，马云提出要让支付宝（Alipay）和苹果支付（Apple Pay）在中国合作，不过当时他的这个提议显得并不合理。

    支付宝是中国当下最热门的在线支付系统，人们用它支付淘宝（Taobao）上的订单，缴纳物业费，购买电影票，还可在其他购物网站上消费。然而，支付宝的地位与拥有数万个商家和刷卡网络的Visa、万事达（Mastercard）或中国银联（UnionPay）不尽相同。漫步在北京或者上海的街头，你会发现银联的标志随处可见——作为国有支付处理机构，银联在中国具有垄断地位——而支付宝的标志却寥寥无几。

    与此同时，苹果（Apple）的新产品——苹果支付——更多的是一种实地体验。你无需在结账柜台刷卡，而只需在与苹果签约的20万家门店内，轻松按下iPhone的home键就能完成付款。是的，苹果手机上的在线组件让在线购物变得更方便了，但它的关键还是物理组件，而支付宝的特色则是在线支付。

    所以当马云抛出橄榄枝时，我们并不清楚支付宝在中国能给苹果带来什么：它在国内没有支付设施，尽管曾经有过——支付宝曾在一些商家的收银台前提供二维码，顾客可以扫描二维码来付款，而银联随后表示，支付宝必须通过银联网络才能完成支付处理。

    但马云并不是轻率地开腔，这番话极有分量，即便你很难理解。就在马云在众目睽睽下与蒂姆•库克的对话刚过去两天，中国政府就宣布了将对支付政策做出巨大改变，马云的合作设想随之得到有利支持。

    上周三，由李克强总理领导的中国国务院宣布，中国将对Visa、万事达和美国运通（American Express）等国外公司开放支付系统。一直处于弱势地位的支付宝也有可能位列其中。十多年来，中国一直禁止这些公司发放自己的银行卡，强迫他们使用银联网络并缴纳费用。在此期间，银联成长为一家羽翼丰满的垄断巨头。

    支付宝在面对银联时遭遇了类似困境。去年8月，在银联表示支付宝的交易必须纳入银联网络后，支付宝突然宣布，由于“明显的原因”，将关闭线下销售点的服务——尽管数量非常有限。

    中国商业媒体财新（Caixin）当时引用了一个消息源的说法：“支付宝决定彻底退出线下支付领域，因为它不想受到银联的控制。”

    The idea of an Alipay and Apple Pay partnership in China —suggested by Jack Ma this week—didn’t make a lot of sense when he said it.

    Alipay is China’s most popular online payment system used for online purchases including Taobao orders, paying utility bills, movie tickets, and other shopping sites. It is not like Visa, Mastercard, or China’s own UnionPay, which have a network of tens of thousands of merchants and swipe stations. Walk around Beijing or Shanghai and you’ll see plenty of signs for UnionPay, the state-owned processor that enjoys a monopoly within China, and barely any for Alipay.

    Apple’s new Apple Pay, meanwhile, is a mostly physical experience. You forgo the hassle of swiping a credit card at the cash register for the ease of touching the iPhone’s home button at two hundred thousand locations that have signed on with Apple. Yes, it has an online component that makes online shopping easier, but its allure is the physical component, just as Alipay’s allure is online.

    So when Ma brought up a partnership, it wasn’t clear what Alipay could offer Apple in China: it doesn’t have payment installations across the country and even where it did—in some stores it previously setup QR codes at cash registers that customers scanned with Alipay—UnionPay told Alipay to route them through UnionPay’s network.

    But Jack Ma doesn’t choose his words lightly. What he says carry weight even if it is difficult to understand. Just two days after he spoke on a stage with Tim Cook in the audience, China’s government announced a massive change to the payments system that supported Ma’s idea of a partnership.

    Late Wednesday, China’s State Council, the Communist Party’s 35-member policy board led by Premier Li Keqiang, announced China would open its payment system to foreign companies like Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, which it had long discriminated against. It might have well have added Alipay, which has also been disadvantaged. China has blocked foreigners for more than a decade from issuing their own cards and forced them to use UnionPay’s network, handing over a cut of the fees. During that time, UnionPay grew into a full-blown monopoly.

    Alipay has similarly faced off against UnionPay. Last August, Alipay abruptly said it shut down its offline point-of-sales service—the limited physical locations it had—for “obvious reasons” after UnionPay said Alipay’s transactions must be integrated into its network. It was a bold power grab, but one with state support.

    “Alipay decided to quit offline payments altogether because it does not want to subject itself to UnionPay’s control,” China’s business magazine Caixin quoted a source saying at the time.