Western Union and Amazon have partnered to launch a new payments option, allowing shoppers across South America, Asia and Africa to service their online payments through their respective local currencies.
Last week, the two firms unveiled the new payment option in the first ten countries – Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Peru, the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand – expanding access to shopping options for citizens in these countries.
The service, Amazon PayCode, is powered by Western Union’s cross-border money transfer platform and will process the complex foreign exchange, settlement and money movement requirements characteristic of international e-commerce transactions.
Unlocking Access
“We’re helping to unlock access to Amazon.com for customers who need and want items that can only be found online in many parts of the world,” said Khalid Fellahi, SVP and general manager of Western Union Digital.
Shoppers in these ten countries will see a PayCode option on their Amazon.com checkout page that will provide them with a code, along with instructions on how to pay in person at a participating Western Union agent location.
“In a world where cross-border buyers and sellers are often located on different continents and in completely different financial ecosystems, our platform is ideally suited to solving the complexity of collecting local currency and converting it into whatever currency merchants need on the other end,” said Fellahi.
Research firm Forrester estimates that cross-border shopping will represent 20% of e-commerce by 2022, with sales reaching $630 billion.
“Amazon is committed to enabling customers anywhere in the world to shop on Amazon.com, and a big part of that is to allow customers to pay for their cross-border online purchases in a way that is most convenient for them,” said Ben Volk, director of payment acceptance and experience at Amazon.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Frankline Sunday. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
