PayPal Launches Global Payment and Collection Platform, Doubling Down on AI to Empower Cross-Border Payments | The Frontline

Author: Ou Xue

Editor: Yuan Silai

Recently, PayPal officially launched the newly upgraded "PayPal Global Payment Platform (PayPal Open)". This platform integrates multiple localized product features and services, and has improved in terms of system stability and business scalability.

PayPal revealed that the new platform will support multiple new functions such as subscription fees, in-app payments on iOS, IC++ pricing model, multi-currency display and settlement, and intelligent risk control capabilities. At the same time, PayPal also launched two core checkout experience optimization solutions - Fastlane by PayPal and New Checkout, aiming to improve the efficiency and security of cross-border payments.

Fastlane by PayPal allows users to automatically fill in shipping and payment information when checking out on partner e-commerce websites without having to re-enter passwords or update credit cards. According to internal PayPal data, this function helps merchants increase the checkout sales of visitors by an average of 7.5%. New Checkout streamlines the payment process from the traditional multi-step operation to three steps, reducing payment delays by 35% and increasing the payment completion speed by approximately 400 basis points. These two products will soon be launched in the Chinese market.

In addition, PayPal also announced that by 2026, users of its payment app Venmo will be able to use Venmo for consumption at millions of online and offline merchants worldwide that accept PayPal payments. This initiative not only broadens the consumption scenarios for Venmo users but also provides a new marketing channel for cross-border merchants, especially brands targeting the young, urbanized, and high-spending digital native generation.

Su Lei, the senior director of PayPal and the head of sales in China, pointed out in an interview: "The core demands of Chinese cross-border merchants have always been very clear. They are most concerned about the fund arrival cycle, transaction security, as well as settlement costs and fees. The upgrade of the PayPal Global Payment Platform is precisely centered around these pain points."

To better promote technological integration and innovation, PayPal China recently held its first developer hackathon during the cross-border e-commerce conference, encouraging developers to develop more intelligent and automated cross-border payment solutions based on PayPal's "Agentic AI Toolkit".

AI is becoming a key part of PayPal's future strategy. Su Lei revealed that PayPal is collaborating with its global technology team 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. "AI is very likely to become the next-generation traffic entry point and even reshape the existing search and social customer acquisition models."

Currently, AI technology is spreading extremely rapidly among Chinese cross-border merchants. According to PayPal statistics, 60% - 70% of Chinese customers have accessed AI technology to varying degrees, such as completing customer service responses, image generation, and video production through cloud-based AI. "On platforms such as TikTok and Facebook, many promotional videos of Chinese merchants have already been fully produced by AI. We are systematically sorting out these excellent cases and hope to promote them to more merchants." Su Lei added.

Yu Jinsong, the head of PayPal's technology integration partner team, said that the new global payment platform is actually an upgrade based on the global payment platform launched last year. The biggest feature of this version is the integration of AI Agent technology, which can help merchants connect to the PayPal global payment network more quickly and expand service capabilities in AI scenarios.

"In addition to traditional search and active purchases, we predict that there will be more shopping experiences in the future that are assisted by AI decision-making and even AI recommendations. We hope to help merchants layout the next-generation transaction scenarios earlier through the Agentic Commerce ecosystem." Yu Jinsong said.

Since the beginning of this year, despite the many challenges in the foreign trade environment, Chinese cross-border merchants have still shown strong resilience and adaptability. Su Lei said that there was a high degree of uncertainty in the industry as a whole in the first quarter, but the situation has significantly improved since the second and third quarters. "The mobility, innovation speed, and flexibility in responding to changes of Chinese merchants in the e-commerce field are significantly better than the average level of other countries."

He also pointed out that external pressures such as tariffs have actually given rise to a number of new cross-border business forms. Traditionally, China's overseas expansion has mainly focused on physical goods such as consumer electronics, 3C products, and fashion items. However, since the beginning of this year, digital services and content products such as games, AI tools, and short dramas have been rapidly emerging as new growth points in cross-border trade.

PayPal said that it will continue to increase its investment in the Chinese market, especially in deepening services in the field of AI and payment integration, to help Chinese merchants maintain their competitiveness in the complex international environment.