A payment gateway that grants access to all major payment methods and local acquiring banks in China - including Alipay, 99bill, China Union Pay and Yee Pay - it is hosted in Shanghai within the borders of the fast domestic Chinese Internet network in order to provide fast local processing. Enabling merchants to benefit not only from lower processing and implementation costs but also from a streamlined revenue management and a faster time to market, China Paygate sees Computop further strengthen its position in the world's second largest e-commerce market.

"It has never been easy to expand into new global markets, however, the opportunity is there for the taking. Provided the product fits the market, the booming Chinese economy promises a bright future for many retailers and will be worth it for those that get it right," explained Ralf Gladis, CEO of Computop. "However, consumers are creatures of habit when it comes to money and, unlike in the western world, credit cards are not popular for buying online in China, so retailers selling there to support the right payment methods preferred by Chinese consumers such as online bank transfers and e-wallets. This is where our China Paygate solution comes into its own by supporting a range of local payment methods for retailers, without them having to worry about provisioning for these as the Paygate solution does it all for them."

Supporting a multitude of payment channels through a unified interface offering a wide choice of payment options for the consumer helps to avoid order abandonment. On the other hand, the local fee structures and market coverage are different from Western habits and difficult to understand for merchants. Therefore, China Paygate offers merchants a least cost routing function that provides a maximum coverage of 100 Chinese consumer banks as well as the lowest fee for each transaction.

China Paygate follows on from the launch of Computop Paygate 6.0 earlier this year; this latest version of the multichannel global payment platform offers new features and functionality that make it even easier and faster for merchants to conduct business both domestically and internationally. This product extended the choice of international and domestic alternative payment and processing methods available to support consumer preferences across key emerging markets including Brazil, wider Latin America and Russia and Eastern Europe.

With offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong out of which are based Computop's local sales support and development staff, the company has established a strong, dynamic network for businesses looking to expand their e-commerce platforms into the region with existing customers including illycaffe.

"Computop has operated in China for almost three years and we have built up strong relationships with local payment partners. In this market, a key differentiator is the number of banks a PSP is connected to as this is the gateway to the consumer market. We've used our local expertise and understanding to create the China Paygate platform and are confident it will open up new doors for merchants looking to operate in this complex but exciting marketplace," concluded Gladis.