Alipay looks to support Wuhan businesses hit by coronavirus

Alipay, a mobile commerce platform operated by Ant Financial Services Group, has announced a series of initiatives to support small businesses in Wuhan as the city emerges from coronavirus lockdown.

It will later expand coverage to support service providers across China. Alipay has set up a section, visible from the landing page of its app, allowing the platform’s 900 million users to easily locate merchants and their respective products and services in Wuhan.

This allows orders to be placed directly via the Alipay app for local specialty produce, and also enables users to access livestreams of tourist destinations across the city.

"In every hardship, there lies an opportunity to envision and create a brighter future. We firmly believe that, after the Covid-19 outbreak, service providers who are able to tap into the power of digital technologies will come out the strongest," says Simon Hu, CEO at Ant Financial.

"We are committed to supporting SMEs and will continue to provide leading digital technology solutions to support the recovery of small businesses and help them prepare for the future."

Merchants using the Alipay platform can apply for loans offered by the Zero Contact campaign jointly launched by MYbank, an online bank under Ant Financial with a focus on serving SMEs, and 100 banks in China. MYbank will waive interest rates for 360,000 offline micro merchants in Wuhan for the first month and cut interest rates by 20% for Hubei merchants outside of the city.

Free training courses will, meanwhile, be available via the Alipay app to help service industry workers, such as cashier staff, storefront managers and small business owners, tap into digital technologies.

China yesterday reported zero new Covid-19 deaths for the first time since January, despite struggles with ongoing outbreaks including in Wuhan where dozens of residential blocks were locked down just one day before travel restrictions were lifted.

More than 1.3 million people around the world have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, and there have been more than 74,744 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins tracker.