Uber Takes Paytm For A Global Ride

Cab hailing app Uber has collaborated with mobile commerce platform Paytm and Alibaba‘s financial arm Alipay, to enable their users to book and pay for cab rides, from respective apps globally.

As per the new collaboration, Paytm users will now be able to book and pay the fare for an Uber cab ride through Paytm App. The facility will be available for Chinese users using Alipay.

As per reports in January 2016, Alipay has been sharing its technology with Paytm since 2015, to promote financial solutions to those in India who have limited access. Alipay and Uber also announced a deepening of their collaborative global expansion efforts in India, through a similar strategy and product integration between Alipay, Uber and Paytm.

Eric Jing, President of Ant Financial said, “Alipay’s collaboration with Uber reflects a step forward of Ant Financial’s global strategy, and the collaboration also extends to the Alipay’s strategic global partners like Paytm in India. The collaboration aims to bring better experiences for our users globally.”

The integration is available internationally, in 68 overseas countries and territories including the US, and over 400 cities across the world.

Users travelling overseas need to connect a dual-currency credit card to their account, and were billed for their rides in U.S. dollars. However, with this integration in place, they will now be able to pay directly through the app.

The partnership with Alipay and Paytm will enable Uber riders to pay for their international rides directly in Chinese Renminbi (RMB) for Chinese and Indian Rupee (INR) for Indians using their connected Alipay and Paytm accounts respectively, eliminating the need for dual currency credit cards or currency conversion. Paytm will not charge any fees for conversion and the fares will be based on current forex rates.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, CEO and Founder of Paytm said, “We want to bring better payment services to people in India and we are achieving our goals with technologies powered by Alipay. Leveraging the strategic partnership with Ant Financial, we look forward to working closely with more global partners like Uber to grow our influence in order to benefit our 126 Mn users.”

Alipay and Paytm’s combined user-base is over 600 Mn. Paytm contributes about 130 Mn. With over 150 Mn Chinese and approx 50 Mn Indians travelling abroad every year, this deal is important for both Alipay and Paytm in their efforts to go global.

The Paytm integration will go live by the end of this month, whereas the Alipay option is active for users in China.