Black Dragon Cafe

Alipay (支付宝 zhīfùbǎo) is a Chinese PayPal, an online payment service that lets you buy stuff from Taobao, the Chinese Ebay. This post explains how to set up an account – be warned, it takes about an hour.

To open an Alipay account, you’ll need a Chinese bank account (see our previous post on “How to open an ICBC bank account“).

As usual for a Chinese website, better to open Alipay in Internet Explorer.

1. Sign up for an account name and password

To sign up for a new account, go to the navigation bar at the top of the page:

You’ll be given three choices, register by phone, email or as a business. We’re going for email:

Which takes you through to this form for filling out your account name and password:

1. Your email address – this is the username you’ll use every time you sign into Alipay.

2. Your real name – “Please fill in your real name, this makes it convenient to verify your identity.”

3. Log in password – 6-20 numbers and / or English letters

4. Confirm password

5. Verification code – write down the letters / numbers in the graphic.

6. Button to submit info (and sign up to the service agreement in the box below).

2. Activate account by email

So after you press the orange button, you’ll go through to this page:

Which tells you to check your email inbox, where you should have received an email from alipay@mail.alipay.com with the subject “请激活您的支付宝账户！”. Click on the orange link in the email to activate your account. If all goes well you should get this screen, telling you you’ve been successful:

Click on the top grey button to …

3. Transfer money from your bank to Alipay account

(Alipay says it accepts payment from over 50 banks, but only actually gives you the option of 7 online banks, including ICBC, Bank of China, and China Merchants Bank).

Click on the second grey button down to transfer money into your Alipay account (”账户充值”). Which will take you through to…

Where you’ll want the top left option, to pay by online bank account:

Click on the big yellow button (”立即充值”) to see:

Which is the log in page for Alipay. BUT you’ll have to install a program called “Alipay Security Control” before it will let you use this page – click on the red writing (”请点此安装控件”).

Then that big orange button to install. After you’ve done that, go back to the original log in page, refresh it, and it’ll now let you fill in your account name (email) and Alipay password:

Which takes you through to a screen asking for MORE details:

1. Your real name – this should already be filled in for you.

2. Payment password – This is DIFFERENT to your Alipay log in password, this is the password that you use to authorize payment from your Alipay account.

3. Confirm payment password.

4. Choose your security question.

5. Answer to your security question.

6. Type of ID certificate – this will be passport (”护照”) if you’re not Chinese, the same one you used to sign up for the bank account.

7. ID (passport) number.

8. Phone number.

Fill all that in and submit with the big orange button, you’ll get a green “success” message then this page…

Click on the orange button to transfer funds (”立即充值”) and you’ll go through to here:

Where you’ll want to pick:

1. The online bank account tab (”网上银行”).

2. Choose your bank.

3. Fill in the amount you want to transfer.

4. Click on Next (”下一步”).

And it’ll show you a summary of how much you want to transfer from which bank. Click on the orange button to skip to your online bank’s website:

Put in your ICBC bank card number and the verification code, then press Submit (”提交”, the grey button on the left)…

You’ll be given a page that has your confirmation phrase for your account (see the Opening an ICBC account post).

Insert your ICBC U shield usb key:

If all looks ok on the confirmation page then click the left grey button to Pay In Full (”全额付款”). You’ll get the following confirmation page:

Check all is ok, then Submit (”提交” – left grey button). Now a grey window will pop out. On the actual, physical USB key, the U Shield, press the OK button twice. Another grey window will jump out asking for your PIN number (”口令”). This is your usual online password. Type it in, click Confirm, and you’ll get this screen:

… telling you you have successfully paid money into your Alipay account.

That’s it. Next post; how to open a Taobao account….