International funds transfer giant Western Union has announced a new feature on its global payment app, designed to solve the issues of fee payment between China and study destination nations in partnership with WeChat.
Western Union’s GlobalPay allows students to pay fees to global institutions online, and lists benefits such as holding exchange rates for 72 hours – which is important as students need to ensure the correct amounts are paid for transactions which may take time to be processed.
“Mobile payments play a key role in Chinese day-to-day life”
According to Western Union, the service can be used to make payments for “tuition and fees, accommodation, books, meals, and more”.
Digital transactions through the popular ‘all-in-one’ Chinese mobile phone app have sky-rocketed in recent years, from $11.6 billion to an estimated $1.2 trillion between 2012 and 2016. Some estimates put the WeChat Pay figure at 40% of all mobile transactions made in China.
In the same time period, Chinese students have continued to stand out as the largest block of internationally mobile students globally. In 2017, Beijing’s Ministry of Education revealed, the number of Chinese young people studying outside of the country rose about 600,000 for the first time.
This is not the first initiative launched to attempt to tap into the lucrative market of Chinese students, or their money’s movement, but the use of WeChat is a key difference, according to Western Union.
“Mobile payments play a key role in the day-to-day life of China’s digitally-savvy population. Being able to use WeChat Pay and other popular payment platforms is crucial for Chinese students,” said Adam Tiberi, senior vice president, strategy and product, Western Union Business Solutions.
