Country & Regional Focus
Published  5 MIN READ
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SuperConnecting China’s Fintech Innovations with the World

by Thomas Lin, Director, Mobile Money & E-Commerce Transaction Banking Client Access 


In today’s China, what you do on Mobile Wallets can impact your relationships and credibility. If you have been asked to share your WeChat contact after a business meeting, chances are it went well. If you do business on your mobile, it is perfectly normal for your chat group to be flooded with voice recordings, spreadsheets, payment requests and transaction records. With limited credit card penetration and history in traditional banks, your online purchases, bill repayments, consumer reviews can all translate to your own credit score based on Artificial Intelligence.

Journey to the East

Two years ago, I arrived at Tencent’s Beijing office with a team of international colleagues to explore synergies with WeChat pay. At the time, we had completed over 12 alliances with Telco based Mobile Wallets platforms from Kenya to the Philippines. WeChat was our first tie-up with a social media platform with hundreds of millions of consumers who can bank where they want and still pay on WeChat. As an operating system with open APIs, WeChat gives external developers the tools to support its infrastructure and enrich its services. It was an eye-opener and opportunity in Transaction Banking that many were still just beginning to thinking about.

The Game Changer already arrived

In February 2017, we became the first global bank to achieve a direct integration with Tencent on WeChat Pay. We launched a one-stop solution dubbed SuperConnect that enables clients to accept payments from WeChat wallet, debit and credit cards directly without having to contract individually with unknown tech vendors. We learned that we have succeeded where many others have tried and failed. Since then our WeChat collection solution has been rolled out to a great number of clients in Aviation, Manufacturing, Real estate, Trade, E-commerce, Insurance, Agriculture, FMCG, and logistics industries.