Alipay, WeChat kick off payments deal

Chinese consumers in Australia have a new way to pay for bills and school fees, as digital payments ramp up thanks to social distancing guidelines.

An Alipay employee shows how to send money with a smartphone. Popular online payment services have made many Chinese consumers comfortable sending money from their screens and attractive to companies that pitch loosely regulated, often risky investments. PHOTO: HAN CHUANHAO/XINHUA/ZUMA PRESS

Fintech payment companies Gobbill and AirPay have launched a new way for Chinese consumers to pay Australian bills using popular Chinese digital payment methods, Alipay and WeChat payments.

It comes as Australian retailers move towards digital payment methods in line with new COVID-19 social distancing guidelines.

Merchants are increasingly introducing contactless payments and encouraging online and phone order services as the epidemic continues to take hold.

Gobbill CEO and co-founder Shendon Ewans said the new capability will be rolled out to over one million users via popular Chinese media app Today Australia.

According to Mr Ewans the feature, called ‘ToPay’, will allow Today Australia users to pay and categorise bills including phone, utilities, school fees and council rates using money stored in their Alipay and WeChat digital wallets, instead of using cash, or Visa and Mastercards, which many Chinese consumers do not use.

WeChat and Alipay have already debuted in high-end retail stores such as Gucci, Victoria’s Secret, Champion, Glue Store and more via AirPay’s QR code payments.

Mr Ewans said the move was part of the company’s international expansion plans for its product, which forensically checks invoices for fraud, and executes secure payments.

He said the timing was right to introduce new technologies to process Chinese payments in Australia, especially given the state of global economies.

Simon Tse, Head of Fintech at AirPay, said Chinese sales across retail are down 30 to 50 per cent this month.

"We predict it will be a difficult financial year for many companies. Our next goal is to drive one million Chinese consumers to merchants via the everyday usage of our app," Mr Tse said

Locally, economists predict Australia’s GDP will continue to fall for two consecutive months, indicative of a potential recession. As a result, small businesses and households are the focus of the latest $66 billion COVID-19 stimulus package announced over the weekend.