Chinese internet company Tencent has joined forces with Taiwan-based E.SUN Bank to provide the Tenpay online payment service, which enables mainland internet users to buy products from Taiwan’s small and medium-sized enterprises.
Chinese consumers are able to use their mobile phones to scan the "quick response" codes of Taiwan-made products such as food and cosmetics, and pay with Tenpay’s service to have the products shipped to mainland addresses.
Go deeper with GlobalData
E.SUN Bank president Joseph Huang said that around 200 Taiwan-based merchants currently support the service and more are expected to join.
The alliance is one in a series of moves by Tencent to compete with Chinese e-commerce rivals like the Alibaba Group, in order to gain a stronger foothold in Chinese payments:
"We are working on projects in Hong Kong and Taiwan and hope to sort out ways to provide online payment services outside the mainland and then reach out to more merchants," said Jim Lai, Tenpay’s general manager.
In 2011 Tenpay joined forces with American Express for a similar service for its users to buy goods on websites outside the Chinese mainland.
Last year, China’s online shoppers spent an average of 1,514 yuan per person on overseas shopping websites, according to Alipay, China’s biggest online payment company.
The total amount of overseas shopping transactions through Alipay increased by 117 percent in 2012, compared with 64.7 percent growth in the domestic market over the same period.
Related Articles
Alibaba conjures up big numbers in China
