This startup lets merchants accept WeChat Pay, Alipay, and soon, cryptocurrencies

Patrick Ngan, CEO and co-founder of QFPay

This article is part of Tech in Asia’s partnership with The Jay Kim Show where we publish the revised transcripts from the show’s podcast interviews with top entrepreneurs. This is heavily revised from the original show transcripts. For the full interview, go here.

Patrick Ngan is the CEO and co-founder of mobile payment startup QFPay International.

I sat with him at the lovely American Club in Hong Kong where he talks about the ubiquity of mobile payments in China, how that trend will impact the world, and his company’s future plans.

Could you tell us about your background?

I grew up in Hong Kong, but I did all my schooling in the UK. I came back to Hong Kong for my first job at Lehman Brothers.

I’ve been an investment banker for 16 years, focusing on equity capital markets. Then, I decided to join a corporate in China, trying to chase the China dream.

After that, I joined QFPay. We focus on providing products and systems to enable mobile wallets like Alipay, WeChat Pay, and other wallets. From China, we expanded into 12 countries. Our largest supporter is Sequoia Capital, which invested in our series A and series B. We’re now focusing on our series C.

Could tell us more about QFPay?

My co-founders are Tim Lee and Molly Zhang who are based in China. I focus on the international markets.

In China, people generally don’t have to carry cash anymore because the whole ecosystem of mobile payment is so complete. There’s only one drawback, though: when your phone runs out of battery. That’s the only time when you cannot make payments. Otherwise, even when you don’t have an internet connection, you can still pay with your mobile phone.

Because of that, Alipay and WeChat have, in a way, created a payments trend. From that point onward, everything exploded. Plus, there are so many Chinese tourists out there.

Only 10 percent of the Chinese population has a passport and can go overseas. Last year, they spent US$120 billion overseas.

So can you just imagine that, one day, when they travel, they will want to do something they’re familiar with back home? WeChat Pay and Alipay will become the norm in payments. If a coffee shop in Singapore or if a restaurant in Malaysia wants to attract more tourists, they just simply have to enable WeChat Pay or Alipay.

But that represents just the Chinese population for the last couple of years. In every single country we’re in, we work with the largest or the second largest bank to roll out a mobile payment system for locals. In Thailand, for example, the mobile payment system is not just for Chinese tourists but also for the 17 million Thais.

I know is because the banks have now engaged QFPay. So, if they are going to launch something of this scale, they probably have the blessing of the government.

How does the user experience work?

Do you get a percentage off the transaction?

What do you think is stopping Alibaba and Tencent from putting their stamp on all the places that you guys have gone already?

Do you have any plans involving cryptocurrencies?

What are your other forward-looking plans?