“Our vision is to build a mobile-first, international payments service and we’re excited to work with Alipay as a partner,” said Tamer El-Emary, Chief Commercial Officer, WorldRemit. “The partnership will focus on innovation, customer experience and speed to market.”

In many markets around the world, the vast majority of remittances are still being sent ‘offline’. Money is taken to, and collected from a physical agent, and usually subject to high transfer fees.

With WorldRemit’s mobile first approach to digitising remittances, the collaboration between Alipay and WorldRemit will help make remittance services more convenient and affordable, especially for migrant workers globally.

The digital service will provide senders and recipients a fast, secure, and convenient way to transfer money whilst reducing the high associated costs.

“With a significant Chinese migrant population in New Zealand and, over a million Australians having Chinese ancestry, China has the largest migrant population globally. China also has the highest mobile payment penetration globally, with 86% of China’s population making use of mobile payments in 2019. The World Bank estimates that Chinese diaspora sent home over $67 billion in remittances in 2018, so our mobile-first approach to digitising remittances through collaboration with Alipay, will deliver a mobile-to-mobile money transfer service that suits Chinese consumer behaviour,” explained Scott Eddington, managing director, APAC, WorldRemit.

The partnership with WorldRemit marks a further step in Alipay’s efforts to harness the power of digital and mobile technology, to make financial services more inclusive and affordable, especially for underserved and underbanked individuals worldwide.

“We look forward to working with WorldRemit to build a remittance service that is fast, secure, and cost effective,” said Ma Zhiguo, Alipay’s head of global remittances. “The unique mobile to mobile payment experience that this partnership delivers allows us to provide a convenient money transfer service to Alipay customers.”

The international money transfer service to the Alipay app is now available from over 40 countries.