SAN FRANCISCO, United States – PayPal Holdings Inc. said it is joining with China UnionPay Co. in the digital-payments company's latest global push to find more customers and better position itself in cross-border e-commerce.

Merchants in European countries will be able to accept payments from UnionPay credit and debit cards through PayPal’s Braintree platform designed for mobile commerce, San Jose, California-based PayPal said Thursday in a statement. Adding a familiar payment option is a key step to enabling cross-border e-commerce, so the partnership will increase PayPal’s appeal to European merchants looking to reach Chinese shoppers. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. uses a similar strategy to introduce foreign goods to Chinese shoppers through it has payments service.

“To enable payments from the largest card network in China is quite material in terms of helping our merchants go connect with Chinese consumers,” Bill Ready, a PayPal senior vice president, said in an interview.

PayPal expects Chinese shoppers to spend $118 billion on cross-broader transactions this year, an increase of 31.4 percent from 2015.

By Spencer Soper; Editors: Jillian Ward, Andrew Pollack and Dan Reichl.