Put Apple Inc's Tim Cook and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd 's Jack Ma under the stars together and a partnership just might bloom.

Those were the signals emanating from both people on Monday at the WSJDLive tech conference in Laguna Beach, California, the US, as they took to the stage separately and spoke about working together on mobile payments.

"I'm very interested in that," Ma, founder of Alibaba, 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 to work hard. I respect Apple and respect Tim very, very much."