“We want to be a part” of Chinese payment capabilities, is how PayPal‘s CEO describes the vision of the payments provider in terms of future cross-border collaboration.
“China developed a very robust set of digital payment capabilities,” is what Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal finds attractive about working with China in the future.
Speaking about the company’s plans to Bloomberg yesterday, Dan points to the readiness of PayPal to “certainly help in the cross-border [expansion of China].”
According to him, PayPal enables 400,000 Chinese merchants to sell to 250m consumers outside of China. Dan says that “there is also a potential capability [for sellers] inside China.”
Chinese payments work in a different way to the west. Dan says that PayPal will be working towards creating payment services that would work for both markets.
“We think proving digital payments to Chinese merchants and consumers is important. China is probably the most developed country, in terms of digital payments. You can go to almost any retail kiosk or micro-merchant and they will accept digital payments right from your mobile phone. They do it through QR codes, and in many ways it is a cashless society. We can all learn a tremendous amount from China. But you also need to know that it might not be necessary to replicate the Chinese experience in other markets. China didn’t have a developed point of sale system so it was ripe for these QR codes. In the US, we have credit bureaus, [and] it is easy enough to use your credit card in many locations. Each economy grows up in a different environment; consumers have different wants and needs, merchants have different needs and the regulatory environment is different in each market.”
– Dan Schulman, CEO, PayPal
Uncertain political arena?
Touching upon the influence of geopolitical environment on the global trade, he takes a positive stance. Commenting Donald Trump’s efforts to introduce financial services in China, he says he’s “a firm believer” in continual expansion.
He says that political factors are in play, but both governments are “thinking expensively” supporting cross-border business.
“Chinese are also thinking how they’re to open their markets to different industries inside China. I don’t think it’s a one-way street, it’s a two-way street. Both countries are looking at what is win-win in here and not lose-lose.”
– Dan Schulman, CEO, PayPal
When asked whether it is too late to establish itself in China with Alibaba’s payment provider, Alipay gaining momentum; he put it simply: “I don’t think so, it is an exploding market. This is not a ‘win or take’ market. There is a room for multiple players.“
