On April 17, Lianlian Digital held an Investor Day event in Hangzhou, officially announcing the company’s strategic upgrade from “cross-border payment expert” to “AI-native new global smart financial infrastructure.”
Along with this definition, there are also a set of new expressions such as AI Payment Engine, Agent Wallet, Agentic Commerce, etc.
For Lianlian Digital, this event is not just a regular capital market communication, but more like an initiative to improve the company’s positioning.
The premise that Lian Lian dares to come up with this new set of statements is that the original business fundamentals are solid enough.
Public disclosure shows that Lianlian Digital’s total revenue in 2025 is 1.734 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 31.9%; of which digital payment service revenue is 1.450 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.0%; global payment business revenue is 1.045 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29.3%; global payment TPV reaches 452.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 60.7%.
As of the end of 2025, the company has served more than 10.4 million customers, and has established a global license network consisting of 66 payment licenses and related qualifications, covering more than 100 countries and regions, and supporting settlement in more than 130 currencies.
This size and capability structure determines that Lianlian is no longer a company that only focuses on cross-border collection tools.
In this investor day, Agent Wallet is the link that best reflects Lianlian’s new ambitions.
According to the caliber of the on-site release, what Lianlian wants to get into is not just the corporate wallet itself, but the issue of who will undertake payment actions, account management, instruction verification, fund transfer and subsequent settlement when AI Agent participates in procurement, marketing, contract fulfillment and business decision-making in the future.
The position that Lianlian strives for has extended from “helping customers get money back and pay out” to “participating in the next generation transaction process”.
Looking at the cross-border payment industry, this is a higher-level narrative upgrade.
The move to elevate “AI native” to the company’s strategic level this time is not out of thin air.
AI has been continuously used in many business links such as risk control, customer service, and exchange rate optimization, and investment in related technologies continues to increase.
In 2025, Lianlian’s R&D expenses will increase to 361 million yuan. The annual report mentioned that it will continue to improve its blockchain and AI-related technical capabilities and expand application scenarios.
In other words, the first task of AI at the current stage of Lianlian is still to improve payment, compliance, operation and service efficiency; now by further integrating AI with accounts, payments, and smart agent transactions, the company wants to strive for a larger business boundary beyond cross-border payments.
Lianlian’s strategic upgrade is generally positive.
In the past few years, the cross-border payment industry has experienced price competition, channel competition, compliance lessons and re-evaluation of service capabilities. Many companies still mainly focus on the collection and payment link.
Lianlian’s success today does not rely on a single product, but on building licenses, accounts, settlements, compliance, technology and customer services layer by layer.
As AI begins to enter a new stage of transaction and business processes, companies with more complete capabilities will indeed have a better chance of integrating new technologies into real businesses, rather than just showing off concepts.
For Lianlian, taking the initiative to raise “AI native” to the company’s strategic level shows that it is not satisfied with being a traditional cross-border payment company, but is striving for a higher business ceiling and a longer growth cycle.
Of course, the last thing the capital market looks at is still not just concepts.
Lilian’s net profit in 2025 reached 1.662 billion yuan, turning a profit from the previous year.
However, the public disclosure also stated that the profit improvement included non-operating items such as the proceeds from the disposal of connected equity.
After excluding such factors, the company’s adjusted operating profit in 2025 will be 82.26 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 105.9%.
This set of data shows that the repair of Lianlian’s main business and the improvement of operating efficiency exist, but for the new story of “AI-native global smart financial new infrastructure” to truly take hold, it must continue to focus on product launch, customer growth and profit quality.
Lianlian’s continued improvement of the company’s positioning this time also has a strong practical background.
In the past few years, the main lines of competition among cross-border payment companies have mainly focused on license expansion, channel coverage, collection efficiency, localized services and value-added tools. These capabilities are still important today, but they have become more and more like tickets to the next stage of competition.
Whoever can further embed payment capabilities into enterprise operating systems, AI Agent execution processes, and global business automation processes will have a greater chance of taking a step forward from a payment service provider to an infrastructure service provider.
What Lianlian wants to talk about this time is a new financial technology infrastructure company that connects Eastern supply chains and global markets, connects corporate operating systems and intelligent agent execution, and connects payment networks and compliance account systems.
The market has heard this story, and the next thing to see is whether it can continue to produce business data, product capabilities and sustained profits.
