Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba to offer eBay’s PayPal on AliExpress wholesale site

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Alibaba to offer PayPal on wholesale site

SAN FRANCISCO — Chinese e-commerce site operator Alibaba.com Ltd. said Monday that it will start offering PayPal, the online payment system owned by competitor eBay Inc., for use on its new wholesale site, AliExpress.

Alibaba.com said the deal will help customers by making it speedy, safe and simple to make payments on AliExpress. The AliExpress site was rolled out in a “beta” testing mode in September and was officially launched Sunday.

Alibaba.com is part of Alibaba Group, 39 percent of which is owned by Yahoo Inc. The search company shuttered its own offices in China several years ago when it sold much of its business there to the company.

Alibaba’s deal with PayPal comes shortly after the payment service said it planned to double its staff in Asia by 2,000 by the end of this year. The region is its fastest-growing market.

PayPal announced another deal in Asia in March, partnering with China UnionPay — which operates interbank transaction settlement for bankcards in China and the region — and Singapore’s DBS bank to offer online payment services to aid the growing Internet shopping market there.