Start trading in the Chinese markets

Ranging from consumers, wholesalers, agents, and factories, from raw materials to the products in the hands of the consumer. Access to China, a UK based company, has been operating in the Chinese markets for over 20 years with over 100 years of experience among our staff.

Over the last ten years, China has moved most of its trading online. Given the size of the country and cities and 1.4 billion people, the Internet has allowed the country to grow its internal markets. This has allowed consumer prices to be driven down and quality to be greatly increased. Given these and many other benefits, the adoption of Internet technology has been fast in China.

This adoption of new technology does not stop with the internet; green technology adoption is growing very fast. Green tech is seen in China as cheaper, fastest and functionality richer. The Chinese government are driving the development due to the high pollution level in China.

Green technology our focus for 2024. Today, China is the world's largest producer and user of Green technology.

Access to the world's largest market

Overseas social media is not available in China. Having your website seen and found is critical to successful business relationship building in China.

Many regions and countries worldwide speak Mandarin, i.e., Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, California, Hong Kong, Vietnam and many more. Adding Mandarin language to your SEO data can open your website to trading worldwide beyond China. The Chinese market goes way beyond the 1.4 billion people living in China.

Given the importance of being seen on the internet in China and Chinese markets worldwide, Access to China focus of our business is getting your business, products and services seen online in China.

Chinese green technology

Green Technology is key to most businesses’ growth in the next five years. Chinese Green Technology has been developing rapidly, given consumers and government demands to reduce China's high pollution levels.

Green technology is key to most businesses’ growth in the next five years.

The development of Green Technology is starting to give greater efficiencies, reduce costs, and increase productivity, i.e., electric vehicles; greatly reduced operating costs, greatly improved performance, and improved safety.

We believe Green Technology should give you more, not less.

Sourcing products and services from China

For the last 40 years, China has built up its manufacturing base to be one of the most successful in the world.

In recent years, the growth of the Chinese domestic consumer market has increased imports from overseas of high-quality products. In turn, this has driven up the quality of locally produced products. Today, China is moving towards better quality products.

Lower-quality products are moving to other Asian countries.

The global issues, starting with the virus in early 2020 and continuing today with conflicts around the world, resulted in a rethinking of supply chains. The repatriation of manufacturing back to your country using China's production know-how is an option for consideration.

Chinese trading information and recommendation

Access to China information and recommendations for your consideration to support your Chinese trading ambitions. In our trading in China for over 20+ years, running and operating Chinese businesses, we have gathered lots of information and recommendations.

Short video presentations (coming February 2024)
Internet in China information
Papers and reports
Useful links

We are happy to share this information and are always interested in adding to the pool of information. Any ideas, requests or information, very well.

Chinese payment gateways

A gateway that processes local payment methods, including local credit cards, is essential for successful Internet trading.

All countries have rules and regulations on which payment methods can be used and when. To that end, China has its own rules and regulations and will not allow a Chinese business to operate payment processes on non-Chinese approved systems. This applies to all Internet transactions processed on servers/clouds/data centres in China. All payments made in China must be to a Chinese bank account.

An overseas business needs access to some parts of these payment gateways to trade widely and successfully with Chinese people and businesses. “If you cannot take a payment, you cannot process an order.”

China has very successful payment processing systems and a gateway for day-to-day trading.

Historically, China has used cash and bank money transfers. Money transfers between accounts and banks have always been fast: a few minutes between accounts and only a few hours between banks.

Today, like in the rest of eastern Asia, touch payment systems from your mobile are replacing cash. In China, an increasing number of stores are no longer taking cash.

Chinese Credit Cards

Union Pay was the business credit card processing system for historical Chinese citizens. Today, some Chinese credit cards support Visa and MasterCard processing, but Union Pay is still the majority supplier of credit card processing in China.

We recommend you speak with your business credit card processing company to ensure you can accept payments from Union Pay credit cards.

When processing a Chinese credit card, the monies are taken from the Chinese bank account in your local currency. The purchaser has already exchanged the funds into your local currencies at the Chinese bank.

When using a Chinese credit card overseas, it operates like a Debit Card as the funds are taken from the Chinese account to complete the credit card processing transaction. Generally, within a few seconds, confirm on their Chinese mobile.

Please note: Currently, most Chinese cards will need “swiping” as the “chip and pin” / “contactless” processing is not compatible with other countries.

Chinese Online payment processing

The rollout of payment systems in China is happening very fast, and many people and businesses prefer these systems as no cash is required.

Local Chinese charge cards.

A local charge card requires you to put small amounts of money on it at the outset.

Then, stores, etc., take touch card payments. Different operators operate in different cities/areas in China.

These systems are often used in food halls, where you purchase a prepaid card before you purchase food and pay for it with your card. This allows the food halls to process many orders very quickly, and unclean money is not handled by the staff serving food.

These systems have been widely used in China for the last ten years, as they eliminate the need to carry cash, visit banks, etc.

Today, these cards have been replaced with APPs on smart telephones. The processing is the same as with the Change Cards; the need for the card has been removed.

Online payment gateways.

There are two main online Chinese payment gateways;

These are the leading online payment processing gateways used on the internet in China.

Alipay, owned by Alibaba, was the first significant online payment processing system.

WePay, owned by Tencent, is a new system becoming very popular in China due to its full integration with WeChat.

Both gateway systems support online payments, touch payment apps (replacing local charge cards), and, increasingly, bank services.

These systems are cheap; they are 50% to 75% more affordable than the payment systems we use in Europe.

You can open Alipay and WePay as an overseas citizen or business.

Your trading rights with these payment gateways within China are changing monthly.

We recommend contacting the payment gateways directly and determining their terms and conditions.

Ask the specific questions:

Will your payment gateway allow a Chinese citizen or business to pay in my online store in local Chinese RMB currency and have the monies available to an overseas bank account?

What are the costs of achieving this? (Setup, running costs, transaction fees, etc.)

Please remember;

If your internet presence is being processed in mainland China, regardless of what the payment gateways say, you must have a Chinese bank account and business.
The workaround is to have your Chinese online store operate outside China. Have a local marketing presence in China and point to overseas Chinese stores. TMall Global operates this way for overseas businesses (based in Hong Kong).
The Chinese government limit the amount of money Chinese citizens can spend overseas each year ($50,000)
Many Chinese citizens often have overseas bank accounts, which is legal, so they have access to overseas payment gateways and credit cards. Therefore, your existing payment system will support some Chinese businesses in your local market.

Our recommendations;

Make sure your credit card processing payment system can process Union Pay.
Monitor the international progress of Alipay and WePay. Once they can process Chinese citizens paying in Chinese RMB directly into your bank account outside China, it would be an excellent time to install them as a payment option for the Chinese market.

Last modified v2.1: August 2019