GOING GLOBAL
Before strolling on the streets of the Chinese city of Hangzhou in early 2016, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of Indian e-commerce company PayTM, never thought that cryptic QR codes prevalent in China could solve a problem that had troubled his company.
The company needed abundant bar code scanners to promote mobile payment in India at the time, but quickly adopted the Chinese way of printing QR codes on paper to reduce cost and funding risks after Sharma's trip.
PayTM only had less than 30 million users by February 2015, and now the number rocketed to 220 million, making it India's top mobile wallet and the third largest in the world, exceeding Paypal.
Behind its success stands Ant Financial, who partnered with PayTM since 2015.
Ant Financial sent technical staff to India to help PayTM engineers build a localized mobile payment platform, exporting cutting-edge technologies in risk control, cheat-proof and anti-money laundering systems for mobile payment.
Sharma said years ago people would say China learnt from the Silicon Valley. Now, the Silicon is learning from China on its advanced digital technologies.
Inspired by Alipay, PayTM discovered local features. People use the app to pay for rides on Tuktuk, a commonly used motor tricycle service, scan codes on posters to buy Bollywood movie tickets, and scan codes on merit boxes in temples to donate.
Technical and business output of such can also be found in Wechat Pay, as it partners with PayU, one of India's largest mobile payment providers.
Similar moves go beyond India into markets having huge demand for mobile payment, with Ascend Money in Thailand, Mynt in the Philippines, Emtek in Indonesia, Kakao in South Korea and others forming partnerships with their Chinese models.
"Forming partnership is our core strategy, because our partners know local businesses and market best," said Rita Liu.
Different regions may not at the same pace in adopting mobile payment, as Liu sees it, but China's marveling digital revolution will be recognized more in the long run.
"We believe mobile payment is an irresistible trend in the world at large, but changes need time," she said.
