As one of the preferred digital payment options for Chinese nationals to pay bills in Australia, ChinaPayments is expanding. But to better reflect its global reach, fintech company Novatti (ASX: NOV) has launched the product in 6 new countries under their Novatti BillPay platform. 

Novatti BillPay is an extension of Novatti’s ChinaPayments service that saw a large increase in Gross Transaction Volume (GTV) last month following the return of international students en masse back to Australian campuses. Such transactions were headed by tuition fees, accommodation and other utility bills in RMB (Chinese Yuan) via popular digital wallets such as Alipay, WeChat Pay and UnionPay. 

Following on from its success in the China market, Novatti has expanded its reach into the broader Asian market to include Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and South Korea. With ChinaPayments being an established business and Novatti already present in those countries, the launch of Novatti BillPay is the latest example of the Melbourne-based fintech scaling their existing ecosystem with minimal expenditure. 

Residents of the aforementioned countries can now also pay their Australian bills using their local currency with Novatti BillPay through popular digital wallets in each country. Doing so will leverage Novatti’s existing partners in the education sector and provide the same seamless and convenient customer experience which is highly valued by ChinaPayments customers. 

Novatti BillPay facilitates BPAY® payments which is an Australian electronic bill payment system facilitating payments made through a financial institution’s online, mobile or telephone banking facility to more than 60,000 organisations that are registered BPAY billers. Offering the same premise as ChinaPayments, Novatti BillPay allows bill payers to pay their bills using international digital wallets and foreign currencies with competitive exchange rates while recipients in Australia are then paid in Australian Dollars as they already would for local BPAY bills.

Novatti BillPay also offers white-label solutions to BPAY billers and merchants, diversifying their payment methods. This is particularly beneficial for businesses with global customers with different payment preferences. 

The launch of Novatti BillPay in 6 new Asian countries comes at a time when Australia’s migration is set to surge following the lifting of pandemic travel restrictions and a concerted push by the Government to shore up roles following labour shortages in many sectors that rely on migrants. 

Australia’s net migration is forecasted to exceed 300,000 arrivals in FY23, a 25% increase on previous Treasury forecasts, highlighting the tailwinds that Novatti can capitalise on by expanding the ChinaPayments model into other international wallets and currencies. With the Novatti BillPay platform now launched, Novatti has been active across Australian university campuses over the past month, promoting the payment platform to international students. Additionally, the platform is also being marketed abroad through their extensive network of partners in the education and migration sectors which will increase GTV opportunities across Novatti’s Cross Border Payments division. 

Like other digital payment processors, Novatti earns a small commission on payments processed through the various businesses and platforms within their global payments ecosystem. This contributed to the Company generating $19.9m in sales revenue in the Half Year ended 31 December 2022, up 78.5% on the previous corresponding period. 

On a broader scale, Novatti processed more than $3.4 billion in transactions over the past year and is on track to reach $4 billion in 2023. 

The launch of Novatti BillPay continues a busy few months for Novatti which recently expanded their merchant services into New Zealand, allowingNZ businesses to accept customer payments online or face-to-face via various ‘tap’ products.