PChomePay Inc (支付連), a subsidiary of PChome Store Inc (商店街市集) tapping the third-party electronic payment business, yesterday announced plans to team up with Chinese Internet services company Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) to launch a service for cross-border e-commerce transactions in China.
Through integration of the systems of PChomePay and TenPay Co (財付通) — a payment provider owned by Tencent Holdings — Chinese consumers would be able to directly purchase products from the 18,000 PChome Store shops online.
This is the second significant cooperation between Taiwanese and Chinese third-party payment services, following Allpay Financial Information Service Co Ltd (歐付寶) of MacroWell OMG Digital Entertainment Co (OMG, 茂為歐買尬數位科技) which teamed up with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s (阿里巴巴) Alipay.com Co (支付寶) in the second half of last year.
Photo: CNA
“The cooperation with TenPay is an important step toward the development of cross-strait e-commerce transactions, which only applies to PChome Store, but will surely be expanded,” Jan Hung-tze (詹宏志), chairman of PChomePay and PChome Store, told a press conference in Taipei.
Jan said he is targeting a monthly sum of NT$1 billion (US$32.89 million) from China through the launch of the new service, which might help raise sales momentum for PChome Store.
Taiwan-based Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank (上海商業儲蓄銀行) is scheduled to serve as the bank for the newly launched service, with PChomePay retaining payments from consumers by up to 15 days before sending them to online shops.
PChome Store has also unveiled products especially for Chinese consumers, offering Taiwanese souvenirs, gift boxes and skincare products, aiming to stimulate sales from China.
Tenpay currently has 300 million individual members and 500,000 corporate members, serving as one of the leading third-party payment services in China.
In the first nine months of the year, PChome Store’s consolidated sales totaled NT$710.78 million, up 43.59 percent from the same period last year.
Its shares fell 2.41 percent to NT$182.5 on the GRETAI Securities Market yesterday, compared with a decline of 0.53 percent on the over-the-counter benchmark index.
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