On April 24, the B2B cross-border trade payment platform XTransfer submitted an application for listing on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. UBS Group and CICC served as joint sponsors, and planned to use the same share with different rights (WVR) structure to list on the Hong Kong stock market.
This financial technology company, which has been established for nearly 10 years, has quickly grown into the industry leader by accurately solving the pain points of cross-border payment collection for small and medium-sized foreign trade companies. This submission will also bring new capital market references to the long-dormant cross-border payment track.
It is understood that XTransfer was established in 2017 and is one of the first payment platforms in the world focusing on B2B cross-border trade. Its operating entity is Shanghai Duohui Network Technology Co., Ltd., and its core positioning is to provide efficient and low-cost cross-border payment and settlement services for small and medium-sized foreign trade companies.
Its similar platforms include Lianlian, pingpong, Yipay Pay, Lakala, Pay Anying, and Kongkong Yunhui.
Relying on the independently developed X-Net global unified settlement network and TradePilot vertical AI risk control model, XTransfer has built a global payment and risk control system.
As of March 2026, the company has established cooperation with 171 financial institutions around the world, and its payment services cover more than 200 countries and regions.
Technical capabilities have become its core barrier. The TradePilot AI model has achieved an automated transaction review rate of 98.5%, controlling the platform fraud rate to an extremely low industry level of 0.003%.
In terms of scale, according to a report by Chishi Consulting, XTransfer has become the world’s largest B2B cross-border trade payment platform with a scale of US$60.5 billion in 2025 based on payment transaction volume (TPV), with a market share of 5.1%.
As of the end of March 2026, the platform had a total of approximately 897,000 registered customers, the number of active customers reached 149,000, and the customer net revenue retention rate reached 121%, demonstrating extremely strong customer stickiness.
It is worth noting that the company’s customer concentration is extremely low. In 2025, the top five customers will contribute only 0.3% of revenue, and the largest customer will account for only 0.1% of revenue. Business risks are highly diversified.
At the equity and team level, XTransfer’s core management team comes from global payment giants such as Ant Group, PayPal, and Visa. Among them, founder and CEO Deng Guobiao once served as the head of Ant Group’s international B2C payment business, which also brought early accumulation of resources and technology to the company.
In terms of institutional shareholders, well-known institutions such as Alibaba, Gaorong Capital, and China Merchants Venture Capital have all entered the market to provide capital support for its global expansion.
2023 disclosed in the prospectus –
The 2025 financial data demonstrates XTransfer’s unique financial characteristics of “rapid growth, high gross profit margin, and book losses.” The profitability of the core business is in sharp contrast with the book losses in the accounting statements.
In the past three years, XTransfer’s business scale has shown explosive growth.
Platform payment transaction volume (TPV) has rapidly climbed from US$18.6 billion in 2023 to US$60.5 billion in 2025, with a three-year compound growth rate of 80.2%, far exceeding the industry average growth rate of 34% during the same period.
Correspondingly, the company’s operating income has also increased from US$115 million in 2023 to US$248 million in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 47.1%, of which revenue growth in 2025 will reach 53.3% year-on-year, with strong growth momentum.
In terms of revenue structure, the company’s focus on its main business continues to increase.
Payment services (including collections, exchanges, transfers and withdrawals, etc.) have become the absolute pillar of revenue. Payment service revenue will reach US$208 million in 2025, accounting for 83.8% of total revenue from 76.0% in 2023; the proportion of customer fund interest income will drop from 23.3% to 15.4%, mainly affected by changes in the global interest rate environment; while value-added service revenue will only account for 0.8%, which is still in its infancy.
The gross profit margin level of
This high gross profit feature is due to its technology-driven automated operation model, which greatly reduces marginal service costs.
However, at the accounting statement level, the company has shown continued expansion of net losses.
From 2023 to 2025, XTransfer’s GAAP net losses were US$153 million, US$353 million and US$484 million respectively, with a cumulative loss of nearly US$1 billion in three years.
However, this loss is not a loss from the main business, but stems from changes in the fair value of convertible and redeemable preferred shares – according to international accounting standards, such preferred shares issued in pre-IPO financing are classified as financial liabilities, and their fair value will increase as the company’s valuation increases, resulting in non-cash book losses. This impact will reach US$524 million in 2025 alone.
After excluding these non-cash factors, the profitability of the company’s core business has been significantly restored.
Operating profit has grown rapidly from US$6.46 million in 2023 to US$44.14 million in 2025, an increase of 1,614% in two years; adjusted net profit under non-IFRS will reach US$47.67 million in 2025, and the adjusted net profit rate has increased to 19.2%. The core business has achieved stable profitability.
In order to support global expansion, XTransfer’s sales and R&D investment have always remained at a high level.
In 2025, the company’s sales expenses will reach US$96.04 million, accounting for 38.7% of the current revenue, mainly used for customer expansion and brand launch in the global market; R&D expenditures will be US$39.62 million, accounting for 16.0% of revenue, and will be used for the technical iteration of AI risk control and settlement networks.
Despite the huge investment, the company’s core business already has self-generating capabilities.
Cash flow from operating activities has been positive for three consecutive years, reaching $57.9 million in 2025, demonstrating healthy cash generation capabilities.
However, as of the end of 2025, the company’s net current liabilities reached US$1.282 billion, mainly due to the inclusion of convertible preferred shares in current liabilities. This liquidity pressure will be relieved as the preferred shares are converted into ordinary shares after the IPO is completed.
It is worth noting that the platform’s monetization rate (the proportion of payment service revenue in TPV) has shown a continuous downward trend, falling from 0.47% in 2023 to 0.34% in 2025, a cumulative decline of 15% in three years.
This change is mainly due to the company’s pricing adjustments in order to attract high-quality customers, and also reflects the pricing pressure brought about by intensifying competition in the industry.
While showing impressive growth, XTransfer also disclosed a number of potential risks in its prospectus. These risks are not only common challenges in the cross-border payment industry, but also thresholds that the company needs to overcome in its future development.
Risk 1: Global regulatory compliance: the “Sword of Damocles” hanging overhead.
For cross-border payment institutions, regulatory compliance in multiple jurisdictions around the world is the biggest source of risk.
XTransfer’s business covers more than 200 countries and regions around the world, and it needs to comply with strict regulatory rules on anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing, data privacy, foreign exchange control and other regions in China, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore and other regions.
Regulatory standards vary greatly in different regions and continue to tighten, which means that companies need to continue to invest a lot of manpower and financial resources to maintain license compliance and update systems to adapt to regulatory requirements. The marginal cost of compliance is rising.
The prospectus reminds that any compliance flaws may result in license suspension, fines or even business interruption.
For example, during the reporting period, the company had arrears in payment of domestic social insurance premiums and housing provident funds, with the total amount reaching 45 million yuan, and there was a risk of regulatory penalties.
And if there are loopholes in the risk control system and the platform is used for illegal transactions, it is more likely to trigger serious regulatory penalties and even directly affect the company’s business qualifications.
Risk 2: Intensified competition in the industry: declining liquidity and homogenization challenges.
The cross-border payment track has become a hot spot for capital and institutions to compete for. Traditional banks, third-party payment institutions, and emerging financial technology companies have entered the field. Competition in the industry has become increasingly fierce, and the homogeneity of products, rates, and services has become increasingly obvious.
Traditional banks are diverting high-quality customers by lowering rates and optimizing services, while peer platforms such as PingPong, Lianlian, and Airwallex are also constantly seizing the market, and the pressure of price wars is gradually emerging.
This pressure has been reflected in the company’s liquidity rate, which has continued to decline in the past three years, from 0.47% to 0.34%.
If competition intensifies further, the company may need to continue cutting prices to retain customers, which will further compress profit margins.
At the same time, XTransfer’s business structure is relatively simple, highly dependent on payment service revenue, and has a very low proportion of value-added services. Compared with comprehensive payment institutions, its anti-cyclical and anti-risk capabilities are significantly weaker. How to escape from pure payment services and find new growth pivots is a problem that the company needs to solve.
Risk 3: Concentration of control rights: governance risks under the same shares but different rights.
In order to protect the founding team’s long-term control of the company, XTransfer adopts the weighted voting rights structure allowed by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Each Class A ordinary share has 10 voting rights, while each Class B ordinary share has only 1 vote.
Founder Deng Guobiao will control the company’s absolute voting rights after the listing by holding Class A shares and the concerted action agreement. The influence of small and medium-sized shareholders on the company’s decision-making is extremely limited.
Although this structure can ensure the stable execution of the company’s long-term strategy, it also brings governance risks: the interests of the founders may be inconsistent with other shareholders, potentially harming the interests of small and medium-sized shareholders; at the same time, this structure will also hinder the company’s change of control and deprive small and medium-sized shareholders of the opportunity to obtain share premiums when the company is acquired.
Risk 4: Technical and macro risks: challenges of dependence and volatility.
XTransfer’s business is highly dependent on the self-developed X-Net settlement network and TradePilot AI risk control model. If the technical system fails, is hacked, or the model fails, it may lead to service interruption, data leakage, and even compliance risks.
This also means that the company must continue to invest high R&D expenses to maintain its technological advantage. Once investment slows down, technical barriers may be broken by competitors.
In addition, the company’s business is deeply tied to the global trade cycle.
If the global economic recovery slows down, trade protectionism rises, or foreign exchange rates fluctuate significantly, the import and export scale of small and medium-sized foreign trade companies decreases, which will directly affect the company’s transaction scale and income.
The company’s exchange transaction volume will reach US$46.5 billion in 2025, and exchange rate fluctuations themselves will also have a direct impact on the company’s profits.
At the same time, the company manages up to 2.109 billion US dollars of customer funds. Once there is a problem in fund management, it will trigger serious regulatory penalties and reputational crisis.
