WorldRemit Goes to a Partnership with AliPay
On January 22, Alipay entered a new partnership with WorldRemit, a online remittances company. The partnership will allow consumers to use the WorldRemit app or website to send cross-border remittances to the Alipay app, creating access to China’s mobile money market and serving the 50 million-strong Chinese diaspora.
“Our vision is to build a mobile-first, international payments service and we’re excited to work with Alipay as a partner,” said Tamer El-Emary, Chief Commercial Officer, WorldRemit. “The partnership will focus on innovation, customer experience and speed to market.
According to Tamer El-Emary,
“Our partnerships allow us to tap into a large recipient base on a mobile-to-mobile platform, giving us access to the largest mobile money markets in the world. Partnerships are an integral part of our strategy because they allow us to enter new markets and establish ourselves on the receive side, whereas if we did this alone it would take a lot of time and would be much more expensive.” With the partnership, WorldRemit will now have access to more than one billion Alipay users in China.
However, mobile-to-mobile models, such as that created between Alipay and WorldRemit, may not work everywhere, says Santosh Tripathy, practice lead, digital payments with financial transaction management company SmartStream Technologies:
“Mobile payments are a low-value, high-volume business where companies need to maintain and grow merchant networks and large customer bases to survive in an already crowded market space,” he says. “The rise of digital wallets, APIs and open-banking initiatives makes mobile money wallets defunct because, in effect, they cut out the middle layer. When you can link your phone straight to your bank account and credit cards, you bypass the need for an e-wallet such as Alipay or Paytm. And in other places, where you need to be able to access cash because mobile wallets are still not widely accepted, a different approach will be required.”
With WorldRemit’s mobile first approach to digitizing remittances, the collaboration between Alipay and WorldRemit will help make remittance services more convenient and affordable, especially for migrant workers globally.
However, the partnership with WorldRemit marks a further step in Alipay’s efforts to harness the power of digital and mobile technology, to make financial services more inclusive and affordable, especially for underserved and underbanked individuals worldwide.
“We look forward to working with WorldRemit to build a remittance service that is fast, secure, and cost effective,” said Ma Zhiguo, Alipay’s head of global remittances. “The unique mobile to mobile payment experience that this partnership delivers allows us to provide a convenient money transfer service to Alipay customers.”
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