Wechat and Alipay are both abroad. What do you think?

QR codes have never blossomed everywhere in Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and India. Yin Jie, the head of cross-border business operation of WeChat payment, witnessed this process with her own eyes. Before that, no country has ever used QR code payment to the extreme like China.

in China, QR codes are everywhere. There is no need to say much about the trust and tacit understanding between consumers and businesses based on this mobile payment method. No matter when you buy food or breakfast, you tell the shopkeeper that you have scanned the code and paid for it, and the shopkeeper will let you take the things and go. But in most foreign countries, this payment method is still rare.

Unexpected

In February p>216, the owner of Taiwangluo Restaurant in Chiang Mai, Thailand, made a new attempt, and connected the mobile scanning code payment of WeChat payment to the checkout counter in the store. Since then, she found that in the daily business of opening a store, the choice of mobile payment exceeds 7%~8% of cash payment. Many of them are tourists from China, Xinjiapo and other places. At the same time, you can enjoy a 15% discount when using WeChat payment. After January, she was surprised to find that the turnover after using mobile payment was about 5% more than before.

The development of mobile payment in Thailand is slow. Nowadays, the mobile payment giants WeChat Pay and Alipay from China are stirring up the QR code storm in the Thai market. Before that, it was dominated by traditional payment financial institutions such as UnionPay, Visa and Master.

Thailand has a high threshold for financial services. At present, more than 9% of Thais still use cash, and only about 1% of Thais hold credit cards. "It is not so easy for mobile payment products to enter markets with highly developed credit cards, such as the United States and Europe. However, mobile payment can directly cross the credit card stage and directly popularize mobile payment to merchants in areas with weak credit cards. " Ma Yao, head of the Asia-Pacific region of WeChat payment cross-border business, said.

the popularity of bank cards is related to the high requirements for credit card holders. In addition to a fixed income certificate of 15, baht per month, it is usually used at least 3 baht, and a handling fee of several percent is required. Moreover, there are many currencies in Thailand, with the maximum face value of 1 yuan and the minimum face value of 1 cent, which brings development space for QR code payment.

since the publication of the directory of the first batch of cross-border payment pilot enterprises in China in may 213, domestic third-party payment enterprises have opened up a new broad market space. In the case of domestic mobile payment price war, the commission rate charged by third-party payment companies is usually as low as less than five thousandths. In overseas markets, the payment rate can reach 3%~4%.

"At present, the overseas growth is very large. At present, the main profit growth point of UnionPay is overseas. After years of training by traditional payment institutions, users in overseas markets have become accustomed to the rate of 3%~4%, which will be an important profit point for mobile payment companies in the future." An industry insider revealed.

Battle

The first stop of the overseas battle for mobile payment is the Southeast Asian market headed by Thailand and the East Asian market dominated by Japan and South Korea. Tencent's cross-border trading department started research in 211 and was officially launched in 212. Yin Jie told China Entrepreneur that the main direction of overseas expansion is to keep up with the outbound travel market, and Southeast Asia is the main destination for domestic outbound travel. According to a recent report released by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the total amount of tourists from Chinese mainland to consumption abroad reached US$ 261 billion in 216, an increase of US$ 11 billion compared with 215, with a year-on-year increase of 12%, ranking first in the world. With the east wind of China tourists, the overseas war between WeChat Pay and Alipay has intensified. "From the same period of 216 to May this year, the scale of WeChat payment in Thailand increased by about six times. A relatively large peak period was the Spring Festival in 217, and it increased by 38% during the Spring Festival to the Songkran Festival, and it has been steadily rising. state." Yin Jie said.

On the morning of May 11th, Ma Yao and his team in Thailand have been communicating with the Bank of Thailand about the details of the specific business of WeChat payment, and how to avoid the transaction risk? How to protect the interests of consumers and businesses? How to ensure the steady development of WeChat payment in the local area caused heated discussions between the two sides, and the meeting lasted until the afternoon of the same day.

Before China Mobile Payment Company entered the Thai market, relevant laws and regulations were blank in the field of mobile payment in Thailand. In order to avoid unexpected risks, the Bank of Thailand even organized a delegation of civil servants in March 217 to visit Tencent and exchange solutions for mobile payment and related tourism industries.

This is a long-term communication process. For Ma Yao, at first, she needed to explain to the staff of the Bank of Thailand the specific differences between mobile payment and traditional payment transactions. Up to now, she found that communication with the Bank of Thailand must be a normal work. Therefore, the WeChat Payment School has special operators and legal affairs to communicate with the Bank.

"After today's communication meeting, we agreed with the central bank on specific coordination measures. As long as there is any situation in the future, they will communicate with us in time and we will confirm it quickly." Ma Yao said.

This kind of communication is also mutually beneficial. The Bank of Thailand is planning to introduce relevant standards for QR code payment to promote the development of domestic mobile payment companies. On May 2nd, in a conference call with Malaysia's central bank, Ma Yao learned that, driven by China's mobile payment business in Malaysia, he hoped to formulate relevant laws and regulations to promote the realization of Malaysia's "cashless society" in 22. In addition, another mobile social giant, LINE, has also started to promote mobile payment services in Thailand, but it is in its infancy.

compared with Europe, America and other countries, the Thai market is relatively easy to enter. In the past year, more than 8 million people from China traveled to Thailand. For Thailand's central bank and merchants, mobile payment from China is a major issue related to Thailand's tourism industry.

However, the United States is a highly regulated financial market, and there will be different local laws and regulations to adapt to the payment business in each state. Moreover, American credit cards are highly developed. "If you want to carry out mobile payment business in the United States, you need to apply for licenses in 31 States in the United States, which is a very high threshold." Ma Yao said. To this end, WeChat payment adopts the way of cooperation with local institutions. In May, 217, WeChat Pay announced that it would join hands with CITCON to enter the United States, mainly targeting China tourists in the United States.

according to iresearch, in 216, the total amount of mobile payment transactions in China reached 38 trillion yuan (about 5.5 trillion us dollars), three times that of 215. According to Forrester's data, the total amount of mobile payment transactions in the United States in 216 was only $112 billion, a fraction of that in China. By May 217, WeChat had conducted compliance access assessment in 19 countries and regions, and now it has officially landed in 13 countries, supporting direct settlement of more than 1 foreign currencies. As of April 217, Alipay has landed in 26 countries and regions, including Europe, America, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and supported settlement in 18 overseas currencies.

the layout of AliPay in overseas markets has already begun, even more radical. Overseas, Ant Financial's main strategies are cross-border online business, cross-border offline code scanning payment business and investment mergers and acquisitions. In 216, Ant Financial invested in the Indian version of Alipay Paytm and the Korean Internet bank K-Bank. In 217, Ant Financial's overseas investment continued and accelerated. In February, Ant Financial and Philippine company Ayala jointly invested in Mynt；, a digital finance company affiliated to operator GlobeTelecom. In March, Alibaba increased its shareholding in Indian electronic payment company Paytm and became its largest shareholder.

Ambition

In p>216, Tencent won the highest prize from two teams, one was the game the glory of the king, and the other was WeChat Pay, with a team prize of 1 million yuan. Some media reported that the reason why WeChat Pay won the prize was "because the online payment market of WeChat Pay has completely surpassed Alipay in 216". According to the official data of Tencent's financial report, in December 216, the monthly active accounts and daily average payment transactions of Tencent Mobile all exceeded 6 million. Wechat leads online payment, and more refers to QR code payment. However, Alipay does not agree that "WeChat payment in the offline payment market has completely surpassed".

According to Analysys think tank data, in the third quarter of 216, Alipay won the first place in mobile payment with a market share of 5.42%, compared with 68.4% in the same period of 215. WeChat payment rose with social red envelopes and offline code scanning payment. Based on the data of the Payment and Clearing Association, CICC calculated that on the mobile side, the compound annual growth rate of Alipay from 214 to 216 was 118.6%, while the growth rate of WeChat payment was as high as 326.9%, and the growth trend of WeChat payment was obvious. In the offline payment market, it is a reality that the QR code of WeChat payment and the QR code of Alipay "coexist" at the counter. Now the focus of contention between the two sides is:

whose code users are more willing to scan after picking up their mobile phones, which is why Alipay continues to explore community and content after socialization.

There is a competition between the two. Overseas merchants see it, and many discerning merchants will access both WeChat Pay and Alipay at the same time. "If a family makes some concessions or discounts on profits, it will have an advantage. For example, WeChat payment will help push some coupons from overseas merchants. When you go to Japan or a merchant, this merchant cooperates with us. You use WeChat to shake out a coupon. When you pay back, you will directly deduct that coupon from cash." Honest and frank, director of overseas payment business of Pineapple PASS, said that Pineapple PASS is an overseas service provider of WeChat payment.

traditional payment financial institutions are also greatly impacted by mobile payment. Kuang Wei, the marketing manager of the famous KINGPOWER duty-free shop in Thailand, said, "Since the access to the two mobile payments, WeChat payment and Alipay, the traditional payment institutions such as UnionPay, Visa and Master have dropped by 2%~3% in terms of proportion, and now account for 7%~8% of the total share, and the downward trend is obvious."

In the overseas business development, WeChat payment almost adopts a completely different way from Alipay. Alipay's overseas business is "hands-on", while WeChat payment is provided by service providers, so the number of employees of WeChat payment overseas is less than 1% of Alipay. For example, WeChat Pay has no station and staff in Thailand, and all the details of the implementation of the push are completed by the service provider, including access to merchants and later maintenance. Service providers can complete payment application, technology development, equipment debugging, event marketing and other full eco-chain services for merchants on the basis of the advanced interface of service providers opened by WeChat Payment.

Pineapple PASS is one of the overseas service providers of WeChat payment. Almost all WeChat payments used in Chiang Mai are provided by the play company behind Pineapple PASS. Even when I was an overseas service provider from the very beginning, local merchants did not recognize the play and WeChat payment at all. "At the beginning, some merchants paid the deposit to the merchants first to maintain mutual trust and cooperation." Honest and frank said. At present, there are about ten service providers providing services for WeChat payment in the Thai market.

the logic of adopting service providers for wechat payment lies in the following: firstly, it takes a long time to educate merchants; secondly, due to various restrictions such as local regulatory policies, it takes a long time to cooperate and communicate in the early stage; cooperating with local service providers with capital settlement qualifications can ensure the safety of funds and meet the local regulations on fund handling.

in addition, wechat has bigger ambitions. "The advantage of WeChat payment is that it is not only a payment method, but also social, WeChat WeChat official account operation and back-end customer data analysis, which can provide businesses with longer-term operation services, or other payment methods are quite different from ours." Yin Jie said that she thought that in the future, the whole ecosystem of WeChat products would provide a complete ecosystem for overseas businesses, including WeChat official account, card package, WiFi and user data analysis.

Ant Financial is also fully globalizing, and it is hoped that as China tourists go out, it will also promote the development of local cashless society. Despite the intensified competition, for the two mobile payment giants, the overseas market is still a trillion-dollar blue ocean to be tapped.