Paysend and Tencent Financial Technology have signed a new partnership focused on offering cross-border payments to consumers in China.
The new agreement will centre around the use of Weixin, the PRC-oriented version of WeChat targeting Chinese customers, enabling users in the market to make transnational transactions through licenced banks in China.
By partnering with Tencent’s fintech arm, Paysend plans to allow Chinese consumers funds to reach accounts linked to the Weixin app, whilst also offering features such as fixed fees on money transfers, competitive exchange rates and international payments.
“The meteoric rise of mobile and app-based payments in China has brought convenience to the lives of over one billion people,” said Alex Bessonov, Group Head of Network Development and Strategic Partnerships at Paysend.
“This new partnership with Tencent Financial Technology expands acceptance of Paysend transfers to Weixin users, and underlines our ambition to use the most advanced technology to make payments faster and easier for millions of people around the world.”
Paysend has outlined a commercial objective of offering ‘increased financial conclusion at scale’ via investment in technology, innovation and expansion of its global payments network.
The company has so far accumulated a customer base of five million spread throughout 135 countries, now including Chinese money transactions via its partnership with Tencent Financial Technology.
Wenhui Yang, General Manager, Tencent Financial Technology Asia Pacific, commented: “As customer preferences change, companies like Paysend provide an easier, more convenient, and lower cost alternative for people to send money to friends and family.
“Ultimately, our partnership is another step in promoting openness and interoperability among the digital payment industry, thereby increasing convenience for customers who can send and receive money in the way that makes most sense to them.”
WeChat – the aforementioned platform playing a key role in Paysend’s partnership with Tecnet – was highlighted by Raymond Cui, Head of Marketplaces at Worldline Digital Commerce, in his assessment of the Chinese commerce space for Payment Expert earlier this month.
Cui in particular focused on the platform’s monthly userbase of 900 million, in addition to its interpersonal payments, gaming and shopping features, which enable it to be used as a wallet for retail payments.
“The rapid growth of China’s home-grown Big Tech trio: Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent – also known collectively as BAT – has helped create a unique and thriving domestic digital ecosystem,” Cui remarked.
“With so much on offer from local companies, international brands may only get one chance to get it right. Chinese consumers will walk away from badly optimised, badly translated foreign websites which are not set-up for Chinese search engines and social media. They will also avoid those that fail to deliver a great mobile experience.”
