--FILE--Pedestrians walk past a billboard of Alipay in Nanjing city, east China's Jiangsu province, 26 December 2016. Bicycle riders in China are benefiting from a new deal in the country's burgeoning bike-sharing sector as six players team up with popular mobile payment tool Alipay. The 450 million users of Alipay can now access the bike-sharing services of the companies ª ofo, Bluegogo, Youon, Hellobike, funbike and U-bicycle ª via its mobile app, to keep from having to download each company's app and pay deposits in order to ride. The service is available in 50 cities and connects Alipay with about 6 million bikes, over half of all the shared bikes in China, Ant Financial, owner of Alipay, said in a statement. The move is a counterpunch to WeChat, the messaging-to-payment app that inked a similar deal with bike-sharing company Mobike in March. Alipay and WeChat are locked in fierce competition to win the offline payment market.
