The 4th China International Supply Chain Promotion Expo was recently held in Beijing. As the world’s first national-level exhibition with the theme of supply chain, this Expo attracted thousands of upstream and downstream enterprises from around the world to participate in the exhibition. A number of major foreign trade-related cooperations were implemented during the exhibition.
Among them, domestic third-party payment service organization Lakala and global payment network giant Visa officially signed a strategic cooperation memorandum, becoming one of the focus cooperation in the cross-border service field of this chain expo.
Picture: Representatives of both parties signed a strategic cooperation memorandum at the Chain Expo
Currently, the global supply chain is in a stage of accelerated reconstruction, and my country’s foreign trade structure is also continuing to be optimized. The scale of cross-border B2B trade is increasing year by year, and the corresponding cross-border payment demand is also showing a rapid growth trend.
However, for a long time, cross-border B2B trade payments have still relied on traditional wire transfer as the mainstream settlement method. There are common pain points such as long settlement cycle (generally 3-7 working days to arrive), opaque intermediate handling fees, low process collaboration efficiency, and insufficient transparency of capital flows. In particular, small and medium-sized foreign trade merchants and merchants in industrial zones often have to bear higher settlement costs and capital occupation pressure. It has become a general consensus in the foreign trade industry to promote the upgrading of cross-border B2B payments in the direction of digitalization and standardization.
According to reports, the cooperation between the two parties will be centered on the business payment solution provider (BPSP) model, fully integrating Lakala’s resource advantages in domestic localized merchant services and foreign trade industry scenarios, as well as Visa’s global payment network capabilities and compliance operation experience, to jointly explore cross-border payment solutions that meet the needs of Chinese foreign trade merchants, build a more efficient cross-border business payment mechanism, and open up the full-process service link of cross-border transactions, payments, and settlements.
Picture: Lakala and Visa core cooperation team taking a group photo
The relevant person in charge of Lakala said that this cooperation is an important practice for the deep connection between the global payment network capabilities and China’s local industrial scenes. Next, the two parties will focus on typical foreign trade industry scenes such as Guangzhou’s professional wholesale market, and work with more ecological partners to open up full-link services to help more small and medium-sized foreign trade merchants reduce cross-border settlement costs, improve capital turnover efficiency, and better connect with the global market.
Visa also stated that the two parties will explore more innovative paths within the compliance framework, promote the upgrade of cross-border B2B payments to more efficient and transparent digital payment methods, help more companies improve capital flow efficiency and management capabilities, and provide support for their global business expansion.
It is understood that in recent years, Lakala has continued to develop cross-border payment, foreign card acceptance and merchant global service capabilities. It has long-term served domestic and foreign trade enterprises and merchants in major industrial belts across the country, and has accumulated rich experience in industrial scene services.
In the future, the two parties will gradually expand the scope of industrial scenarios covered by cooperation, promote the application of more digital payment capabilities in the field of foreign trade, and provide digital payment infrastructure support for the high-quality development of my country’s foreign trade and the stable operation of the global supply chain.
