In China, QR codes are everywhere. Needless to say, 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 paid by scanning the code, and the shopkeeper will let you take the things and go. However, in most foreign countries, this payment method is still relatively rare.
accident
2065438+In February 2006, the owner of Thai Wangluo Restaurant in Chiang Mai, Thailand made a new attempt to connect the mobile scanning code payment of WeChat payment to the cashier of the store. Since then, she found that in the daily shop opening business, the choice of mobile payment exceeded 70%~80% of cash payment. Many of them are tourists from China, Xinjiapo and other places. At the same time, you can enjoy a 15% discount by using WeChat payment. A month later, she was surprised to find that the turnover after using mobile payment was about 50% higher than before.
The development of mobile payment in Thailand is slow. Nowadays, mobile payment giants WeChat Pay and Alipay from China are setting off a QR code storm in the Thai market. Prior to this, traditional payment financial institutions such as UnionPay, Visa and MasterCard were the mainstay.
Thailand has a high threshold for financial services. At present, more than 90% Thais still use cash, and only about 65,438+00% 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. Mobile payment can directly cross the credit card stage and directly popularize mobile payment to merchants in areas with weak credit cards. " Ma Wei, head of the Asia-Pacific region of WeChat payment cross-border business, said.
The lack of popularity of bank cards is related to the high requirements for credit card holders. In addition to the fixed income certificate of 65,438+05,000 baht per month, it usually costs at least 300 baht, plus a handling fee of several percent. Moreover, there are many currencies in Thailand, with the maximum face value of 1 1,000 yuan and the minimum face value of 1 cent, which brings development space for QR code payment.
Since the first batch of national cross-border payment pilot enterprises were announced in May 20 13, 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%.
"Now overseas growth is very big. 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% to 4%, which will be an important profit point for mobile payment companies in the future. " An industry insider revealed.
Fight hard
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 on 201,and 201was officially launched. 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 in consumption abroad in 20 16 reached $26 10 billion, an increase of $ kloc-0/0 billion compared with 20 15, ranking first in the world. With the help of tourists from China, the overseas war between WeChat Pay and Alipay has intensified. "From Thailand 20 16 to May this year, the scale of WeChat payment has increased by about 6 times. A relatively large peak period is the Spring Festival in 20 17, which has increased by 38% from the Spring Festival to the Songkran Festival and has been rising steadily. " Yin Jie said.
On the morning of May 1 1, the teams in Ma Yao and Thailand have been communicating with the Bank of Thailand. How to avoid the transaction risk of specific business details of WeChat payment? How to protect the interests of consumers and businesses? How to ensure the steady development of WeChat payment in the local area caused a heated discussion between the two sides, and the meeting lasted until the afternoon of the same day.
Before China Mobile Payment Company entered the Thai market, the relevant laws and regulations in the field of mobile payment in Thailand were still blank. In order to avoid unexpected risks, the Bank of Thailand even organized a delegation of civil servants to visit Tencent in March 20 17 to 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 the specific differences between mobile payment and traditional payment transactions to the staff of the Bank of Thailand. Up to now, she found that communication with the Bank of Thailand must be a normal job. To this end, WeChat Payment School has special operators and legal affairs to communicate with the central bank.
"After today's communication meeting, we agreed with the central bank on specific coordination measures. As long as there is a situation in the future, they will communicate with us in time and we will confirm it soon. " Ma Yao said.
The function of this kind of communication is also mutual. 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 2, in a conference call with the Bank of Malaysia, 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 2020. In addition, another mobile social giant, LINE, has also begun to promote mobile payment services in Thailand, but it is in its infancy.
Compared with countries such as Europe and America, the Thai market is relatively easy to enter. In the past year, more than 8 million people from China visited 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. Each state will have different local regulations to adapt to the payment business, and American credit cards are highly developed. "If you want to carry out mobile payment business in the United States, you need to apply for a license in 3 1 state in the United States, which is a very high threshold." Ma Yao said. To this end, WeChat payment takes the form of cooperation with local institutions. 20 17 In May, WeChat Pay announced that it would join hands with CITCON to enter the United States, mainly for China tourists.
According to the data of iResearch, in 20 16, the total amount of mobile payment transactions in China reached 38 trillion yuan (about 5.5 trillion US dollars), which was three times that in 20 15. According to Forrester's data, in 20 16 years, the total amount of mobile payment transactions in the United States was only11200 million dollars, which was only a fraction of that in China. By May, 20 17, WeChat had assessed the compliance access of 19 countries and regions, and now it has officially landed in 13 countries, supporting direct settlement of more than 10 foreign currencies. As of April 20 17, Alipay has landed in 26 countries and regions including Europe, America, Japan, Southeast Asia, China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and supports 18 kinds of overseas currency settlement.
Alipay's layout 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. 20 16 ant financial invested in India AliPay Paytm and Korea internet bank K-Bank. In 20 17, Ant Financial's overseas investment continued and accelerated. In February, Ant Financial Co., Ltd. and Philippine company Ayala jointly invested in Mynt, a digital finance company affiliated to operator GlobeTelecom. In March, Alibaba increased its stake in Indian electronic payment company Paytm and became its largest shareholder.
seek
In 20 16, Tencent won the highest prize from two teams, one was the game "the glory of the king" and the other was WeChat Pay, and the team bonus reached1000000. Some media reported that the reason why WeChat Pay won the prize was "because the online payment market of 20 16 WeChat Pay has completely surpassed Alipay". According to the official data of Tencent's financial report, the number of monthly active accounts and daily average payment transactions of Tencent Mobile 20 16 and 12 both exceeded 600 million. Wechat leads online payment, and more refers to QR code payment. However, Alipay does not agree with the statement that "WeChat payment in the offline payment market has been completely surpassed".
According to Analysys think tank data, in the third quarter of 20 16, Alipay won the first place in mobile payment with a market share of 50.42%, compared with 68.4% in the same period of 20 15. Wechat payment has risen with social red envelopes and offline scanning code payment. Based on the data of the Payment and Clearing Association, CICC calculates that on the mobile side, the average annual compound growth rate of Alipay from 20 14 to 20 16 is18.6%, while the growth rate of WeChat payment is as high as 326.9%, showing an obvious growth trend. In the online 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 the debate between the two sides is:
Whose code users are more willing to scan after picking up their mobile phones, which is also the reason why Alipay continues to explore communities and content after socialization.
There is competition between the two, and overseas businesses are at their disposal. Many discerning businesses will access both WeChat payment and Alipay. "If a family makes some concessions or discounts on profits, it will have an advantage. For example, WeChat Pay will help push some coupons from overseas merchants. You go to Japan or a merchant, and this merchant cooperates with us. You use WeChat to shake out a coupon. When you pay back the money, you will deduct the coupon directly from the cash. " The director of overseas payment business of Pineapple Express said frankly that Pineapple Express is an overseas service provider of WeChat payment.
Traditional payment financial institutions have also been greatly impacted by mobile payment. Kuang Wei, the marketing manager of the famous KINGPOWER Duty Free Shop in Thailand, said, "Since the interconnection of WeChat payment and Alipay in 20 16, the proportion of traditional payment institutions such as UnionPay, Visa and Master has dropped by 20%~30%, which currently accounts for 70%~80% of the total share, and the downward trend is obvious."
In terms of overseas business development, WeChat payment has almost adopted a completely different way from Alipay. Alipay's overseas business is "hands-on", and WeChat payment is provided by service providers, so the number of employees of WeChat payment overseas is less than Alipay's 1%. For example, WeChat payment has no station and staff in Thailand, and all the details of push are completed by service providers, including access to merchants and post-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 service provider interface opened by WeChat Payment.
Pineapple is one of the overseas service providers of WeChat payment. The WeChat payment used in Chiang Mai is almost all provided by the play company behind the pineapple PASS. Even when I first started as an overseas service provider, local businesses simply didn't recognize the show and WeChat payment. "In the beginning, some merchants paid a deposit to the merchants first to maintain mutual trust and cooperation." To be honest and frank. At present, there are about ten service providers in the Thai market to provide services for WeChat payment.
The logic of using WeChat payment service providers lies in: First, it takes a long time to educate merchants; Secondly, due to various restrictions such as local regulatory policies, the early cooperation and communication time is relatively long; Cooperation with local qualified service providers can not only ensure the safety of funds, but also meet local regulations on fund handling.
In addition, WeChat has greater ambitions. "The advantage of WeChat payment is that it is not only a payment method, but also social, WeChat official account operation and background customer data analysis, which can provide merchants with longer-term operation services, or other payment methods are very different from ours." Yin Jie said that she thought that in the future, the entire ecosystem of WeChat products would provide a complete ecosystem for overseas businesses, including official WeChat accounts, card packages, WiFi and user data analysis.
Ant Financial Services is also in full globalization, 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 major mobile payment giants, the overseas market is still a trillion-dollar blue ocean to be tapped.