Naver Pay to launch in China this year

Mobile payment service Naver Pay will become available for in-person purchases in China this year, according to Naver Financial on Tuesday.

Naver Pay will enter China this year, Naver Financial said on Tuesday. [NAVER PAY]

Mobile payment service Naver Pay will become available for in-person purchases in China this year, according to Naver Financial on Tuesday.

“Naver Pay recently formed partnerships with Chinese fintech services Alipay+ and UnionPay,” said Naver Financial’s spokesperson. “We are planning to interlink their systems as soon as September, and no later than this year.”

Naver Financial is the only local digital payment service to have formed partnerships with two out of the three largest fintech companies of AliPay+, UnionPay and WeChat Pay.

Combined, Alipay+ and UnionPay have over 59 million partner shops nationwide, which means that Naver users can easily make digital payments without exchanging currencies as the fintech service will be accepted at many franchises and stores operating in China.

Since Alipay+ and UnionPay are also serviced in Japan, Naver Pay is hoping to continue to be available in the country although the company's contract with Japan's Line Pay ends on Aug. 31.

"Since our contract with Line Pay ends this month, we are trying our best to make the transition from Line Pay to Alipay+ and UnionPay by next month to reduce the inconvenience for our users in Japan," the spokesperson said.

Alipay+ has over one million partner shops in Japan while UnionPay is accepted across 20,000 partners.

Naver Financial's recent move is an attempt to expand its business overseas. A total of 13.4 trillion won ($10.4 billion) of payment transactions were made through Naver Pay according to its first-quarter earnings report. The figure increased by 15.8 percent on year. Of that 13.4 trillion won, 5.4 trillion won was non-captive payment volume including transactions made overseas. It was the first time the figure surpassed 40 percent of its total quarterly transactions.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]