WeChat Pay today unveils its latest strategy for cross-border payment business 
at the WeChat Pay Overseas Partner Conference 2019. Themed 'One for Billion', 
the conference encourages service providers and merchants across the world to 
expand their businesses by reaching out and engaging Chinese travelers through 
WeChat ecosystem. Close to 1,600 guests, including representatives from global 
merchants and outstanding service providers from China and overseas, gathered 
in Hong Kong to explore the new opportunities with WeChat Pay's smart ecosystem.

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20190322/2411482-1
(Caption:WeChat Pay smart life scenarios experience at the conference.)

"In the past five years, the progress of mobile payment technology development 
in China has received global attention, and the digitization 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. The wide variety of 
functions available within the WeChat Ecosystem will help overseas merchants to 
smoothly accelerate the digitalization process, in order to better serve 
Chinese tourists overseas.

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 of 300%, and the number of 
merchants accepting WeChat Pay increased 700%. In Japan, the transaction 
volume, the total transaction value and the number of merchants accepting 
WeChat Pay in June 2018 increased more than 6 times compared with the same 
period of 2017.

WeChat Pay is now available in 49 markets outside of the Chinese mainland, 
supporting cross-border payment transactions in 16 currencies.

WeChat Pay Unveils Five Key Areas of its Cross-Border Business

Making a purchase is not only about payment. The entire experience throughout 
the consumer journey is important to conclude the transaction. WeChat Pay is 
looking closely into the overall customer experience, and exploring more smart 
living solutions to cover retail, F&B, and fashion, municipal services and many 
other aspects of daily life. At the conference, WeChat Pay unveils five key 
areas of its cross-border business:

-To expand its cross-border payment into more markets and to support more 
currencies. 
-To promote smart checkout solutions and improve the shopping experience for 
consumers. 
-To promote self-service F&B ordering solutions to ease the communication that 
involves different and multiple languages. 
-To promote the usage of AI-based solutions in the fashion and beauty 
industries that enable virtual fitting and makeup testing. 
-To explore more solutions in areas such as overseas consular services, medical 
care, education and other social services.

WeChat Pay has successfully developed many case studies in offering smart 
living solutions. For example, at Heytea Hong Kong, users can order through its 
WeChat's Mini Programs to avoid the queue and collect their orders in store 
when it is ready. For another scenario in Japan, Fuji-Q Highland guests can 
purchase tickets and check queuing times via its WeChat's Mini Programs to 
better plan their visit for different rides and activities, ensuring a smoother 
visitor's experience. 

WeChat Pay is also expanding its scope in other tourism and travel-related 
solutions. Today, close to 20 Chinese embassies and foreign consulates around 
the world are offering WeChat Pay services, which means that Chinese citizens 
can now make payments using WeChat Pay at these embassies and consulates if 
they encounter an emergency, for instance, replacement requests of their travel 
documents.

WeChat - Connect People to Businesses Across Multiple Scenarios

With outbound travel becoming easier and an increase in personal income levels, 
the Chinese outbound travel market continues to expand. In 2018, more than 149 
million Chinese tourists travelled abroad, a 14.7% increase on the same period 
for the previous year[1]. Meanwhile, the consumption of outbound Chinese 
tourists exceeded US$120 billion, and per capita overseas consumption exceeded 
RMB 13,000[2].

While WeChat Pay is assisting the domestic service providers in mainland China 
to expand overseas, WeChat Pay also continues to optimize its overall training 
system to help overseas service providers and merchants to achieve a two-way 
communication with the Chinese travelers for better customer experience. 

[1] "2018 Tourism Market Overview", Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the 
People's Republic of China
 
[2] "2018 Chinese Tourist Outbound Travel Report", China Tourism Academy and 
Ctrip
 
SOURCE: WeChat Pay