TransferWise Partners Alipay in China

The London-headquartered online money transfer service is teaming up with Chinese payments and lifestyle services platform Alipay to expand remittance options for its users.

TransferWise is making more inroads into Asia with a tie-up with mobile payments giant Alipay, which will enable instant transfers to China for 17 currencies, the firm announced in a statement on Tuesday.

With Alipay serving more than 1.2 billion people worldwide together with its local e-wallet partners, TransferWise, which has 7 million customers worldwide, called the partnership a «major expansion.»

Co-founder and CEO Kristo Käärmann said money transfers to China has been one of the most requested features among TransferWise users since its expansion in Asia.

China is projected to be one of the top remittance recipient countries in the world, with £54 billion ($65.4 billion) expected to be sent back home by Chinese expats and migrants living abroad, TransferWise said in the announcement, citing a 2019 report.

In 2019, TransferWise rolled out a debit Mastercard in Singapore, which also included a TransferWise Borderless multicurrency account. It also began processing international payments into digital wallets in Indonesia and the Philippines last year.

Founded in 2011, TransferWise is valued at $3.5 billion, following its last funding round of $292 million in May 2019. It has raised a total of $772.7 million in funding in 10 rounds to date. According to the firm, it processes $6 billion in transfers monthly.