When WeChat Pay organises a conference for global service providers and merchants on how to engage Chinese travellers through their ecosystem, you can’t really afford not to be there.
“In the past five years, the progress of mobile payment technology development in China has received global attention, and the digitisation of all walks of life has continued at a rapid pace. The real driving force behind this is not just a payment tool, but also the support of third-party service providers from the various industries. They are the true representatives of digital innovation in China,” said Li Peiku, vice president of WeChat Pay.
Close to 1,600 guests that included merchants and service providers from China and beyond came together for the WeChat Pay Overseas Partner Conference 2019 in Hong Kong to explore new opportunities with WeChatPay’s smart ecosystem.
Undoubtedly, the seemingly insatiable travel appetite of the Chinese accompanied with their growing wealth is what brought so many to the conference. According to the latest data released at the conference, in 2018, the monthly average transaction volume saw an increase of 500% year-on-year, while the total transaction value increased 400%.
Meanwhile, the number of service providers witnessed a year-on-year increase 300%, and the number of merchants accepting WeChat Pay increased 700%. WeChat Pay is now available in 49 markets outside of the Chinese mainland, supporting cross-border payment transactions in 16 currencies.
WeChat Pay also unveiled five key areas of its Cross-Border Business, exploring more smart living solutions to cover retail, F&B, and fashion, municipal services and many other aspects of daily life.
The five key areas include:
- Expanding its cross-border payment into more markets and supporting more currencies.
- Promoting smart checkout solutions and improving the shopping experience
- Promoting self-service f&b ordering solutions to ease communication challenges
- Promoting the use of AI-based solutions in the fashion and beauty industries such as enabling virtual fitting and makeup testing.
- Exploring more solutions in areas such as overseas consular services, medical care, education and other social services.
The Chinese outbound travel market, meanwhile, continues to expand. In 2018, more than 149 million Chinese tourists travelled abroad with a 14.7% increase on the same period for the previous year. The consumption of outbound Chinese tourists exceeded US$120 billion, and per capita overseas consumption exceeded RMB 13,000.
Feature image credit: Getty Images
