China's XTransfer to expand from payments into wealth management, lending

SHANGHAI – XTransfer, which facilitates cross-border funds for small companies in China, mentioned it's shifting into wealth administration and lending for shoppers underserved by conventional banking.

The fintech agency’s founder and CEO Invoice Deng mentioned that XTransfer – which competes in China with PayPal and PingPong – is beginning to supply short-term funding merchandise to small Chinese language exporters with money quickly held of their accounts.

Such exporters receives a commission by abroad patrons however should not have to instantly pay suppliers, permitting them to generate returns with this spare cash, Deng, who beforehand labored at Ant Group, Alibaba’s fintech affiliate, informed Reuters.

5-year-old XTransfer additionally plans to make use of knowledge generated by way of cross-border transactions to start lending providers for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) later this 12 months in partnership with banks, Deng mentioned.

With out satisfactory knowledge, SMEs are shunned by Chinese language lenders.

Ant initially additionally started by providing fee providers, earlier than increasing into different monetary companies.

XTransfer, which counts China Retailers Enterprise and Gaorong Capital as buyers, has prevented going face to face with Ant by specializing in cross-border funds and small companies.

“We need to be a cross-border model of Alipay linking patrons and sellers,” Deng mentioned in reference to Ant’s massively common funds app.

XTransfer’s growth comes as Beijing has eased a crackdown on the tech sector, and inspired assist to SMEs in an economic system hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The central authorities and the Folks’s Financial institution of China are hoping that monetary providers could be expanded to assist SMEs,” Deng mentioned, including XTransfer can even assist small exporters turn into extra resilient by way of digital transformation.

Abroad funds made to China’s small exporters grew 15.3% from a 12 months in the past within the first half, regardless of extreme COVID outbreaks within the second quarter, reflecting the resilience of Chinese language SMEs, XTransfer mentioned in a current report.