Tencent looks to cross-border payments expansion after leading US$13m funding in Airwallex

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Handout photo of Jack Zhang, the co-founder and chief executive of Hong Kong-Australian financial technology start-up Airwallex. The company has just received a pre-Series A investment from Shanghai-based venture capital firm Gobi Partners, which is the first investment manager of the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund. SCMP Pictures (Handout)

Published: 4:15pm, 1 May 2017Updated: 11:09pm, 1 May 2017

Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings looks poised to kick-start the international expansion of its online payments system after leading the US$13 million, Series A funding round of Australian financial technology start-up Airwallex.

Hong Kong-listed Tencent, which operates the popular social messaging platforms WeChat and QQ, “has a vested interest in cross-border payments as one of the largest mobile payments providers in the world”, according to the fundraising announcement by Airwallex on Monday.

The move follows Alibaba Group affiliate Ant Financial Services’ US$1.2 billion bid to acquire MoneyGram International, the US-based money-transfer provider earlier this year. New York-traded Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Digital payment transactions are rapidly increasing worldwide, according to Capgemini and BNP Paribas’ 2016 World Payments Report. They estimated that global digital payment volumes grew 10 per cent to 426.3 billion transactions last year, up from 387.3 billion in 2015.

“Armed with a growing number of financial services licences and partnerships across numerous jurisdictions, we aim to make international payments as cheap and simple as domestic payments,” Airwallex co-founder and chief executive Jack Zhang said.