Recently, the Boao Forum for Asia 2026 Annual Conference concluded successfully in Hainan.
During the forum, Qiu Han, senior vice president and China CEO of global payment giant PayPal, accepted an exclusive interview.
Qiu Han observed that in the global wave of embracing AI, AI technology has become extremely popular among Chinese cross-border merchants.
According to PayPal statistics, 60%-70% of China’s overseas customers have accessed AI technology to varying degrees.
She revealed that currently nearly 30% of cross-border shopping users choose to shop online from Chinese merchants, which occupies a very important position in its global business.
“As Chinese merchants continue to increase their efforts to go overseas, we predict that the amount and frequency of cross-border payments will continue to further expand in 2026.”
China’s cross-border industry is growing diversified.
This Boao Forum for Asia coincides with the opening year of China’s “15th Five-Year Plan” and is also the first full year after the Hainan Free Trade Port closed its customs operations.
In 2025, my country’s foreign trade import and export will reach 45.47 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.8%, a record high.
Among them, exports were 26.99 trillion yuan, an increase of 6.1%.
Qiu Han revealed that currently nearly 30% of cross-border shopping users choose to shop online from Chinese merchants, which has occupied an extremely important position in PayPal’s global business.
From 2022 to 2024, the compound annual growth rate of the total cross-border payments completed by Chinese merchants through it will reach 21%.
She believes this significant growth comes from several factors.
The first is the transformation of Chinese merchants’ business models.
More and more Chinese cross-border e-commerce merchants are switching from the traditional B2B model to the B2C model, establishing independent websites (DTC model) to sell directly to overseas consumers.
“This model change has brought us a large number of new merchants and transaction volume.”
The second is PayPal’s in-depth application of AI technology, such as the launch of AI-driven Fastlane, New Checkout and other functional and technological innovations.
“For example, the New Checkout function reduced payment delays by 35%, increased payment completion speed by about 400 basis points, and significantly improved merchants’ conversion rates.” Qiu Han gave an example.
The third is PayPal’s upgrade of China’s localization services.
In September 2024, it launched the PayPal global payment platform to the Chinese market and upgraded it to the PayPal global payment platform in 2025.
“Now, PayPal can help Chinese merchants connect to our more than 400 million active users around the world.”
At the same time, Qiu Han observed that in the past year, China’s cross-border industry began to see a diversified growth trend.
She told reporters that there are several new trends for Chinese companies going overseas: First, demand in emerging markets is growing rapidly, including consumers in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and other places, and consumers’ acceptance of Chinese brands continues to increase; second, the application of AI technology in content generation, operation optimization and business decision-making is accelerating, which has significantly lowered the threshold for small and medium-sized enterprises to go overseas; third, virtual goods and digital services are growing rapidly, and the demand for cross-border transactions has significantly increased, bringing new revenue growth points to merchants.
“Especially in the field of virtual goods and digital services, we have seen very rapid development in the past two years.” She specifically pointed out.
For example, China’s live broadcasts, short dramas and cross-border travel services are very popular overseas.
“In addition, many Chinese game companies have done very well overseas and are very eye-catching.”
Chinese businesses are actively embracing AI.
After the Spring Festival, AI agents represented by OpenClaw became popular all over the world.
Compared with the traditional concept of automation, Agentic AI is regarded as a “more subjective” intelligent technology.
Qiu Han believes that Agentic AI will become an important part of the new generation of commercial infrastructure – “In addition to traditional search and active purchasing, we judge that there will be more AI-assisted decision-making and even AI-recommended shopping experiences in the future.”
And she observed that in this global wave of embracing AI, AI technology has become popular among Chinese cross-border merchants at an extremely fast rate.
According to PayPal statistics, 60%-70% of Chinese customers have accessed AI technology to varying degrees, such as completing customer service response, image generation and video production through cloud AI.
“On platforms such as TikTok and Facebook, many Chinese merchants’ promotional videos have been completely produced by AI.”
At the same time, consumers around the world are also becoming familiar with and adapting to the new shopping experience brought by AI.
For example, she said, many consumers are willing to use AI conversation tools, and many also like virtual personal shopping guide services.
Since this year, many Chinese companies have made their mark on the international stage at top exhibitions such as CES and MWC.
This also caught the attention of PayPal.
Qiu Han observed that many new trends were revealed in these two exhibitions, and Physical AI was the core of them.
She told reporters that Chinese companies, especially Guangdong companies, have demonstrated a transformation from “followers” to “leaders” in fields such as robotics, AR/VR, and intelligent hardware.
“These exhibitions fully demonstrate the innovative strength and global ambitions of Chinese companies and bring huge opportunities to our cross-border payment business.” According to market research data, the size of the cross-border e-commerce market is expected to grow to US$7.9 trillion in 2030.
But at the same time, Qiu Han also said frankly, “This also requires us to provide more localized and smarter payment solutions to support their global expansion.”
For this reason.
PayPal has stepped up its efforts to delve into the Chinese market and accelerate localization.
Currently, PayPal has established strategic partnerships with major domestic financial institutions and technology platforms to empower Chinese cross-border e-commerce merchants to go global from three aspects: product, business, and ecology.
AI is also becoming a key part of PayPal’s future strategy.
Qiu Han revealed that PayPal is working with global technical teams to study how to push Chinese merchants’ product information, brand content and coupons to overseas AI engines, so as to more accurately recommend Chinese merchants’ products when users initiate searches or requests.
Looking forward to 2026, Qiu Han believes that China’s cross-border e-commerce will still maintain strong growth.
She observed that thanks to the rapid development of the global digital economy industry, the infrastructure involved in cross-border e-commerce, whether it is channels, fulfillment, payment, marketing, and operations, has become increasingly mature and convenient.
“Despite facing multiple risks such as an unstable external environment, China’s cross-border e-commerce imports and exports will reach 2.75 trillion yuan in 2025, an increase of 69.7% from 2020. The market size is continuing to expand.”
At the same time, the popularization of AI technology has further lowered the threshold for going overseas and has become an important driving force for the internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises.
“The powerful data analysis and deep learning capabilities of artificial intelligence can help cross-border sellers in many aspects such as automated customer service, marketing strategy plans, content production, data analysis, product pricing, warehousing and logistics management,” Qiu Han said. For example, Qiu Han gave examples, such as automatically generating product marketing advertising plans based on consumer portraits, or assisting in product pricing based on market supply and demand.
PayPal predicts that as Chinese merchants continue to increase their efforts to go overseas, the amount and frequency of cross-border payments will continue to further expand in 2026.
However, Qiu Han admitted frankly that the biggest challenges for Chinese companies going overseas are still compliance and localization.
The iteration of sales channels has brought about management complexity. Merchants need to manage multiple platforms, data and charging channels; when expanding into the global market, they also need to face different regulations, data management, taxes and laws and regulations. In particular, small and medium-sized merchants often lack professionals to sort out this.
The rapid development of cross-border e-commerce has led to an increase in payment frequency and has also put forward higher requirements for payment service providers.
As the first foreign payment institution approved to provide online payment services in the Chinese market, PayPal has made frequent moves to increase its presence in the Chinese market.
Last year, PayPal World, launched by PayPal, has reached cooperation with Tenpay Global, a cross-border payment platform owned by Tencent, to support PayPal users to complete payments by scanning the WeChat payment QR code.
It is understood that the two parties have now entered the pilot testing stage and have made good progress.
Also last year, PayPal launched PayPal Open, an integrated collection and payment platform, aiming to help Chinese merchants accelerate their globalization.
The platform covers AI-driven Fastlane and New Checkout technologies, diversified charging models, multi-currency display and settlement, real-time logistics tracking, and machine learning anti-fraud protection and other functions.
“These innovations fully demonstrate PayPal’s determination to serve Chinese enterprises and bring huge opportunities to our cross-border payment business,” Qiu Han said. By empowering products, business, and ecology, PayPal is helping Chinese cross-border e-commerce merchants maintain competitive vitality in the wave of globalization.
Qiu Han revealed that PayPal will continue to increase investment in the Chinese market in 2026, especially deepening services in the field of combining AI and payment to help Chinese merchants maintain competitive vitality in a complex international environment.
