BEIJING, Oct. 16 (Xinhua)-- The number of travelers and relevant tourism consumption hit record high during China's National Day holidays (from October 1 to 8) in 2017. As more Chinese people are choosing outbound travels, China’s mobile payment platforms gears up to cater to their demands on overseas market expansion, Securities Times reported on October 9.
China’s two Internet tycoons – Alibaba and Tencent – are building their network overseas in diverse payment markets and consumption scenario. Baidu Wallet and JD Finance are also eyeing overseas markets.
Alipay’s overseas exploitation via technology replication and partnership
Travelers can use Alipay and WeChat Pay not only in the Southeast Asian countries but also in America, Europe and Africa.
Alipay for instance, China’s mobile payment platforms currently, operate abroad under mainly two models. The first model replicates payment technology. Ant Financial, an Alibaba Group affiliate, launched strategic cooperation in February 2015 with Paytm, an e-wallet of India, to build a localized “Alipay” by licensing the latter use of its independently-developed technologies in security and risk control, anti-fraud, and anti-money laundering. By the end of June 2017, Paytm has had more than 220 million users, becoming the third largest e-wallet in the world.
The second model utilizes the QR code payment channel in partnership with local e-wallets. Alipay’s partner in Finland is ePassi, the largest e-wallet in the country that serves approximately 700,000 local individuals, about 14 percent of the total national population. With ePassi, Alipay now has access to over 500 Finnish merchants, covering supermarkets, restaurants and taxis etc., and is available at majority street vendors in the major downtown areas. Finnair offers in-flight Alipay-based payment service on round trips from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong.
An insider of Alipay noted that the company’s QR code payment has been activated at hundreds of thousands of merchants across more than 30 countries. Tax rebates to Alipay accounts are made possible in 24 countries. Alipay has got access to 56 airports that include 16 in Europe and several in Korea, providing all kinds of services, which also allow immediate tax rebates to Alipay accounts.
Mobile payment stabilized in Q2
The transaction value of China’s third-party–mobile payment market reached 23.04 trillion yuan in the second quarter of 2017, up 22.50 percent over the previous quarter, according to statistics released by Analysis International.
The market shares of the top three mobile payment operators changed. Alipay took up the largest share of 53.7 percent, the same as in the first quarter. Tencent Finance’s share, at 39.12 percent, was down from the last quarter.
According to the report, Alipay and Tencent Finance’s combined market share reached 92.82 percent, still dominating the market, and the total transaction value of the two maintained increase of trillions of yuan. However, Alipay and Tencent Finance failed to further dent the market shares of other payment firms those, in spite of relatively small volumes, are still growing at an even faster pace.
Baidu and JD join in overseas mobile payment
JD Finance and Baidu Wallet are also eyeing foreign markets this year.
JD Finance announced a joint venture with The Central Group of Companies in Thailand this mid-September, aiming at providing FinTech services to Thai users. The JV, once licensed, will provide e-wallet and consumer finance related products and services to users for seamless experiences in payment, loan and consumption. The JV will roll out supply chain finance, insurance and wealth management services as well in the future.
In the mean time, Baidu reached a strategic agreement with Paypal at the end of July. The two parties would join hands to enable Chinese consumers to pay overseas firms online, with the payment platform Baidu Wallet bringing in more merchants onboard from all over the world. Paypal, a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay, is a payment tool for international trade. (Edited by Ma Xin, maxin11@xinhua.org)
A single purchase
