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Chinese equivalent of PayPal to launch in Richmond

Initiative gives merchants access to the world of Alipay and WeChat Pay
chamber chinese wallet
Eric Paquet, President of MotionPay Technology Inc. and Matt Pitcairn, President & CEO of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce shake hands on the historic partnership between their organizations. Photo submitted.

More Richmond businesses can be expected to start accepting transactions from Chinese e-wallets in the coming year thanks to a new partnership between the Richmond Chamber of Commerce and MotionPay Technology Inc.

The two organizations announced a launch event April 26 for their new partnership, which is designed to provide exclusive access to Chamber members on merchant services processed via WeChat Pay and Alipay — two mobile payment systems that are prevalent in China, respectively associated with WeChat (a popular chatting app) and Alibaba (a Chinese online retail giant).

“We’ve found that payment solutions are critical for business success, especially for cross-border business. When we learned WeChat Pay is one of the two largest mobile payment platforms in China, we knew we needed to give our members preferred access to this lucrative market,” said Chamber president and CEO Matt Pitcairn.

By allowing MotionPay to set up business accounts, consumers (typically Chinese) can pay for products with their Chinese money from a WeChat/Ali e-wallet linked to their Chinese bank account, via a simple scan of their phone — an identical process to American e-wallet company PayPal.

Chamber members “will be given business access to China’s most widely used payment platforms, which in turn enables these members to engage commerce with hundreds of millions of Chinese who shop outside of China, and all shoppers worldwide,” said Pitcairn.

After one to three days, stores will receive the payment in their Canadian bank accounts, converted into Canadian money by real-time Chinese Yuan currency rates. 

The competing systems are reported to have conducted over $3 trillion worth of transactions last year combined.

Ottawa-based MotionPay now has more than 600 partner merchants across Canada, almost half of which are in B.C., including some big names such as Birks and Tom Lee Music.

Eric Paquet, President of MotionPay said, via a news release: “As the first and the largest provider of Alipay and WeChat Pay payment solutions in Canada, Motion Pay offers a suite of many different in-store and on-line payment services that are most convenient and highly secured which empowers merchants to win Chinese consumers with their preferred payment method.”

The spending limit, depending on the Chinese bank account linked to the e-wallet, can go up to $10,000 per transaction and $40,000 per day. But this does not apply to individual mobile transfers, which have much lower limits.

Tracking such spending and income in a globalized, digital economy remains an ongoing matter.

The Chinese government can retrieve purchasing data from Tencent and Alibaba, the companies that run WeChat Pay and Alipay, respectively.

According to the Globe and Mail, last November PayPal has been court ordered to provide the Canada Revenue Agency with information about its business account holders, “as tax officials look for businesses that don't report all their income.”

No similar order has been made yet for Chinese e-wallets.

Paquet and Pitcairn will host a panel April 26 at the Executive Airport Plaza Hotel at 8:30 a.m. Register at RichmondChamber.ca.

With Richmond News files