South China Morning Post: FOMO Pay set to help Southeast Asian retailers tap Chinese tourist mobile payments

In Singapore’s growing FinTech industry, Singapore-based startup FOMO Pay stands out from the rest. The startup aims to help merchants across Southeast Asia accept mobile payments from Chinese tourists and ensure they capture a share of the heavy overseas spending of holidaymakers from the mainland.

Yang Zhan, co-founder of FOMO Pay, said its service streamlines the steps needed for retailers or service providers to accept online and offline payments using the mobile wallets favoured by Chinese consumers, such as Tencent’s WeChat Pay, Baidu Wallet and UnionPay.

According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, brokerage Chinese tourists spent US$215 billion overseas in 2015. Spendings are expected to increase further. CLSA predicts that the number of Chinese tourists will increase every year, from 120 million in 2015 to 200 million by 2020.

In addition, mobile payment is growing rapidly in China, with 9.4 trillion yuan spent in the second quarter of this year, up 52% on the same period last year, according to iResearch. In fact, China is home to the most largest mobile payment market, and Chinese consumers are able to do a multitude of things through their phones, including paying utility bills and making restaurant reservations.

“A lot of Chinese tourists want to use this the convenient way, there’s no need to bring cards or cash anymore as they can just spend with their mobile phone. The problem is the overseas merchants are not ready for this new mobile payment mode,” Yang said.

Launched in May, FOMO Pay has now signed up more than 100 merchants to accept payment options through mobile wallets, including online retailers in Australia, the UK, the United States and Canada. The startup recorded US$1.3 million in transaction volume in October.

Yang said FOMO Pay takes three to five days to complete the necessary background check such as anti-money laundering. This is still faster than signing up directly with Chinese mobile payment services or PayPal. In addition, FOMO Pay offers hardware to stores that do not use tablets as point-of-sales terminals.

This article has been adapted from South China Morning Post’s article at: http://www.scmp.com/business/article/2043074/fomo-pay-set-help-southeast-asian-retailers-tap-chinese-tourist-mobile

About FOMO Pay
FOMO Pay is the first authorized WeChat Pay & Baidu Wallet partner in Southeast Asia, and was selected as one of the TOP 100 Asian Companies by E27, TOP 100 Startups by Red Herring Asia, and Top 8 by DBS’ FinTech Accelerator Program.

FOMO Pay provides a one-stop solution for overseas merchants by facilitating payment collection from the China market, including Chinese tourists. This comprises of online/offline Chinese payment modes, such as WeChat Pay, Alipay and Union Pay.

FOMO Pay’s business solution serves clients from a wide range of industries, including the telecom, publishing, tourism and hospitality, F&B, education and retail industries.