Eric Jing, president of Ant Financial Services Group, talked up the benefits for retailers of competition to China Unionpay, the country’s card processing giant, in an interview with the Financial Times.

Ant Financial’s Alipay unit bypasses Unionpay when processing payments for offline retailers such as shops, restaurants and taxis, so stealing revenue from the processing giant.

Unionpay is equivalent to western card networks Visa and MasterCard, both of which have come in for criticism from US retailers over the size of their fees.

“We think merchant fees in the US payments market are too high, and it’s not normal. Running a business isn’t easy [for merchants]. The fees are too high,” said Jing.

“The situation in the Chinese market is more normal. Merchant fees are reasonable. Competition between different [payment] market actors is a good thing. It allows service recipients to enjoy better service.”

The comments are a sign that Alipay is willing to go up against Unionpay, which is a virtual monopoly in China.

“So-called offline payments [mobile payments to offline merchants] are still online mobile payments for the user, so the payment model isn’t the same [as bank card payments],” he said.