Dutch company Adyen, which has branches in London, is tapping into the Chinese mobile payments market in a major boost for the company’s global scale.
Adyen, a payments company that forms the backbone that powers global commerce for the likes of Uber, Facebook, and Netflix, has added WeChat Pay to its portfolio of local payment methods.
The move makes it the first major payment service provider to integrate WeChat Pay into its offering on a global scale, said the company.
The significance of this is that it provides businesses with access to 400 million Chinese shoppers.
China has appeared at the forefront of the mobile payments revolution with 15% of its total population expected to make a cross-border payment by the end of 2016. If this is to happen then it would amount to $86bn in transaction value and by 2020 this percentage is expected to increase to 75%.
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The power of China’s ecommerce market was recently on display during Alibaba’s Singles Day where the company saw sales of $17.8bn in a 24 hour period. Not only is this miles bigger than the combined sales of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it is more than the total projected e-commerce sales in Brazil for the whole of 2016, according to eMarketer.
According to the EY report, ‘China and UK FinTech – Unlocking opportunity,’ China had 358 million consumers using mobile payments in 2015 and online lending totalled £98.7bn.
Combining all of this presents China as a golden opportunity for British fintech firms, and while regulations present a barrier, recent developments to create a ‘Fintech Bridge’ between the two countries shows that moves are afoot to make it easier for fintech relationships to grow.
Zhu, China Marketing Manager, The Cambridge Satchel Company, said: “We need to be where our customers are – and as a British-made brand we have a huge following from customers in China. Mobile commerce is vital for this market, especially for the younger urban Chinese shopper. WeChat Pay is essential for targeting this exciting demographic.”
Roelant Prins, CCO, Adyen, said: “When combined with our existing UnionPay and Alipay integrations, it gives businesses access to the world’s biggest ecommerce market with a single partner. This is the final key to unlocking full access to the Chinese shopper.”
