Online payments provider Stripe has opened up its platform to allow Australian businesses, and businesses worldwide, to accept payments from Chinese consumers that use mobile payments platforms Alipay and WeChat Pay.
For the first time, eligible businesses on Stripe can activate both Alipay and Wechat Pay from their Stripe dashboards.
According to John Collison, president and co-founder of Stripe, previously the majority of businesses outside of China have been cut off from the world’s largest consumer market simply because they can’t accept the payment methods preferred by Chinese consumers.
Collison says credit cards account for only a small fraction of online consumer spending in China, so the majority of businesses outside of China have been cut off from the world’s largest consumer market “simply because they can’t easily accept the payment methods preferred by Chinese consumers”.
{loadposition peter}“As Australian business look to tap into the Chinese market – being able to integrate Alipay and WeChat Pay into their service absolutely essential for success. If they can get this right, the opportunities are limitless. This is big news for Australian eCommerce and position in the APAC market.”
And according to Stripe, Australian online exports to China have been one of the first markets to explode since a free trade agreement between the two countries took effect in December 2015, and China has become an economic powerhouse for Australian online businesses.
Stripe says mobile commerce already accounts for 71% of Chinese e-commerce, which saw sales of US$750 billion in 2016 alone, with Alipay and Wechat pay dominating the mobile wallet ecosystem in China with 92% market share and a billion+ users collectively.
“By deepening our existing partnership with Alipay, and launching a new partnership with WeChat Pay, we’re enabling businesses to easily access the once-impenetrable Chinese market, and in the manner Chinese consumers prefer,” Collison says.
“Whether in the Eastern or Western hemisphere, we’re focused on arming more businesses with the tools and infrastructure they need to thrive in the modern economy.”
Collison says that, fuelled by growing consumer demand for overseas products and services, a quarter of China’s population, amounting to more than half of all digital buyers, will be shopping either directly on foreign-based sites or through third parties by 2020.
Announcements of the partnerships with Alipay and WeChat coincides with Stripe’s official launch in Hong Kong on Monday, with businesses located in Hong Kong now having access to the full Stripe stack.
Souheil Badran, President of Alipay for North America said: “In our aim to get to a global cashless society, Alipay has evolved from a digital wallet into a global lifestyle enabler for Chinese consumers and travellers far beyond Chinese borders.
“We’re excited to strengthen our partnership with Stripe to connect globally-minded Chinese consumers with hundreds of thousands of Stripe-powered businesses around the world.”