Yesterday’s opening day of the Wall Street Journal’s WSJDLive conference featured separate interviews of Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma and Apple CEO Tim Cook. Alibaba operates a series of consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer and business-to-business web portals, generating $120 billion+ in annual revenue. Clearly a terrific opportunity for Apple Pay.

During Jack Ma’s interview, he was asked about Apple Pay:

“I’m very interested in that,” Ma, founder of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA:US), said when asked if it made sense for his company’s Alipay Wallet mobile system to team with Apple Pay. “As always, a good marriage needs both sides hard working. I respect Apple and respect Tim very, very much.”

And during Tim Cook’s interview:

“We’re going to talk about getting married later this week,” said Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc. “I love what he’s done, I think he’s a brilliant guy. I think he has brilliant people at the company so if we can find some areas of common space, I love it. I love partnering with people like that.”

Long way from a deal, but still, interesting.