PayPal to avoid Chinese competition with new cross-border wallet
US payments giant PayPal plans to launch a local wallet in China enabling cross-border payments, according to a report from CNBC.
PayPal’s China CEO says it isn’t aiming to compete with local giants
Hannah Qiu, CEO in China for PayPal, told the publication her firm is avoiding competition from local players Alipay and WeChat Pay by looking abroad.
PayPal has a history of success in China, especially when it comes to breaking into its locally-dominated market.
In October 2019, it became the first overseas company to gain a Chinese payment licence. It did this through the acquisition of 70% in GoPay, a domestic online payments company. A few months later, it increased its stake to 100%, becoming the first US company to wholly-own such a subsidiary in China.
China’s online payments market facilitates more than $41 trillion in payments annually, according to Brookings data. Alipay and WeChat Pay dominate their home market, and boast 1.9 billion users between them.
Qiu, speaking at a panel hosted by CNBC, said that PayPal’s focus would remain on facilitating transactions for 377 million individual users and 20 million corporate users.
Instead of trying to grasp at the domestic market in China, the payments giant is aiming to build a bridge for its existing users to connect with Chinese companies.
She mentioned a “deep cooperation” in place with local payment companies, but declined to name the firms in question.
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