Yiwu Pay makes a strong impression at the 2023 E-Commerce Expo, attracting a continuous stream of people seeking consultations and engaging in discussions at the booth.

Meet Yaoyao, the mascot and IP image of Yiwu Pay.

Yiwu Pay staff members are introducing payment services to merchants.

Merchant Ren Xiaoling showcases her opened Yiwu Pay payment account.

Ling Shousheng, person in charge of Yiwu Shangling Lighting Electrical Appliances Firm, showed a payment information to the reporters. This payment took less than 8 hours from the time the overseas buyer made the payment to the time they received it, setting a record for Ling’s fastest payment in over 10 years of foreign trade business. This fast speed is attributed to Yiwu’s own payment platform, called “Yiwu Pay.”

Yiwu, known as the “world supermarket,” has 970,000 businesses, 2.1 million of upstream and downstream enterprises, and enables cross-border RMB settlement with 176 countries and regions. However, despite its global sales, there is one question that often troubles them: how to collect the payment?

On February 20 of this year, Yiwu Pay officially made its debut, aiming to tackle this issue. Currently, Yiwu Pay supports payments in 20 currencies.

Traditional trade methods such as general trade, processing trade, and transit trade require merchants to possess specific qualifications and authorizations. However, in reality, many merchants in Yiwu are engaged in small-scale businesses characterized by small orders, diverse product ranges, and lack of foreign trade capabilities. Despite their limited capacity, these merchants exhibit a strong demand for engaging in foreign trade. Ten years ago, the government introduced a customized model called “market procurement trade” specifically for Yiwu. This model allows enterprises and merchants to conduct purchases within designated market clusters like the Yiwu International Trade City, which have been recognized by the relevant national authorities.

In 2022, as much as 74% of Yiwu’s import and export businesses adopted this model. Currently, the pilot projects have also expanded to renowned domestic markets such as Haining Leather City in Zhejiang, Changshu Clothing City in Jiangsu, and Baigou Luggage Market in Hebei.

Once the problem of lacking import and export authorization was addressed through the market procurement trade model, a new challenge emerged in foreign trade: ensuring smooth and efficient fund receipts and payments. This challenge has become more prominent, especially due to the rapid expansion of trade volume.

“Last year, the total import and export value of Yiwu reached 478.8 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 22.7%. The distinct feature of having numerous small-scale businesses is more prominent,” said the relevant person in charge of Zhejiang China Commodities City Group Co, based in Yiwu. This implies that the business entities in Yiwu have to collect currency from around the world. In 2022, Yiwu had cross-border RMB settlements with 176 countries and regions, with a cumulative settlement amount of 56.539 bn RMB, a year-on-year increase of 56.23%. Merchants in Yiwu are familiar with using the US dollar, euro, and Japanese yen, treating them as their “usual” currencies. They are also accustomed to working with other currencies such as the Indonesian rupiah, United Arab Emirates dirham, South African rand, and more. (Text and photo by Chen Xuchun and Wu Fengyu)