Payoneer Enters China With Easylink Payment Acquisition

Small business-focused FinTech Payoneer bought China’s Easylink Payment Co.

The deal makes Payoneer the third foreign payment platform licensed to offer online payment services in China, according to a Thursday (April 10) press release . The acquisition cost was not provided.

“We serve a diverse range of companies in China, allowing them to grow their business globally,” Payoneer CEO John Caplan said in the release. “We are honored to be a licensed payment service provider in China. Our acquisition strengthens our global regulatory infrastructure and positions us to better serve those customers with enhanced and localized products and services.”

The news follows Payoneer’s $61 million acquisition last summer of payroll/HR platform Skuad , a deal designed to enhance Payoneer’s efforts to act as a “business-grade financial stack” for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) operating on an international scale.

“Twenty-five percent of Payoneer’s B2B customers are asking for enhanced workforce management capabilities, including payroll, employer of record and contractor management capabilities — so there is significant cross-sell potential with this acquisition,” the company said at the time.

In other digital payments news, WEX President of Corporate Payments Eric Frankovic told PYMNTS in an interview published Thursday about the need for digitization in the business payment world. Progress in moving from paper-based payments remains slow despite increased calls for modernization.

“COVID was the most recent event that we all would have sworn would drive everybody to digitize their back office and get away from paper altogether,” Frankovic said. “And I think it did push us in that direction. But we came out the other side, and what we’re seeing is there are still a lot of companies that are just getting back to doing whatever it is that they do. And digitizing their back office is falling down the priority list.”

However, while paper-based payment processes still represent inertia, companies are beginning to see the writing on the wall. They recognize the need to embrace digital payments as the pressures of fraud , supply chain fragility and generational shifts keep mounting.