Starting September 30, 2015 Chinese travelers have finally been able to pay for items with a quick mobile phone scan through WeChat payment. This method, called “WeChat Cross-border”, comes from the massive Chinese demand for mobile payments. In fact conversely Western customers which are skeptical about these third-party payments, Chinese ones have already been sold on the practice.
Understand how it works is simple: consumers pay with their regular WeChat account in RMB and the money directly arrives in the oversea account in the local currency (foreign currencies supported right now are USD, Euro, Australian dollar, Singapore dollar, Korean won, Japanese yen, British Pound and Hong Kong dollar). Oversea brands though need to have a WeChat Official Account and this can be assisted by a Chinese company.
The new frontier of Chinese payment methods is due to the Company willingness of be competitive against its rivals (such as Alibaba and Tencent). But compared to the other systems (Alipay Crossborder and Tmall Global) WeChat Cross-border has lower barrier to entry and is directly reachable through WeChat. So also minor brands can use it with social promotion and Key Opinion Leaders to test the market without the huge expense associated.
