Paypal Eyeing Chinese E-commerce Business, Strives for Payment License in China

PayPal has been negotiating incessantly with Chinese regulators for the past four years to obtain a payment license to enter the large market, as The Paper reported on August 10.

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“Applying for a payment license is rather complicated for a foreign company. Both the headquarters of PayPal and PayPal China have put high emphasis on this matter, and we are determined to make it happen,” said Lu Liuliu, general manager of the Merchant Business Unit of PayPal China in an interview with the Chinese newspaper.

Established in 1998, PayPal has opened operations in over 200 countries around the world, and at least 21 percent of its global transactions are cross-boarder. There are 244 million users who reply on their PayPal accounts to purchase goods online.

PayPal has always put high emphasis on working with Chinese companies. According to Nasdaq, the company forged partnership with Baidu last year, allowing 100 million Baidu Wallet users to purchase overseas products with their PayPal accounts, while providing international vendors with access to millions of Chinese consumers. At present, PayPal is also cooperating with Alibaba to promote cross-border settlements and payments.

The latest data show that the total volume of cross-border e-commerce transactions in China has reached 7.6 trillion yuan last year, with an year-on-year increase of 20.6 percent, vastly exceeding the growth rate of traditional foreign trade. One out of every five transactions of overseas buyers on Paypal is for purchasing goods from China.

“Reliant on cross-border e-commerce platforms, Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises have become the main driving force of foreign trade in the new era. In recent years, an increasing number of SMEs, with the development of their cross-border e-commerce businesses, are undergoing transitions from traditional B2B to B2C,” Lu said.

The payment giant also launched a SME Month on August 10 to help these cross-border e-commerce SMEs upgrade their businesses.