After bidding farewell to barbaric expansion, aggregate payment strives to build a merchant service ecosystem, extend the industrial chain and increase profit margins. The aggregate payment market is more diversified, and the value of capital is also reassessed during this period.
Author | Chen Dachai
Produced | Payment Encyclopedia
"Payment Encyclopedia" learned that Wuhan Lichu Business Service Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Lichu Scan"), the leading company in aggregate payment, has completed a new round of financing. Tencent and Ant Group formally invested in Lichu Scan, both 14.11% is the second largest shareholder.
The specific amount and valuation of this round of financing are unknown. After the change of industrial and commercial information, the shareholders of Li Chu Sao Bai are Wang Peng, Shanghai Yunxin Venture Capital Co., Ltd., Guangxi Tencent Venture Capital Co., Ltd., Tang Xiaozhong, Zhou Zhao, Jiang Wenlong, Shanghai Fuyou Payment Service Co., Ltd., and Wuhan Sao Bai Network Technology Center (Limited Partnership).
Among them, Wang Peng holds 17.91% of the shares and controls Wuhan Saoba Network Technology Center (limited partnership), which is actually the major shareholder and actual controller of Lichu Saoba. The new shareholder Shanghai Yunxin Venture Capital Co., Ltd. holds 14.11%, Shanghai Yunxin Venture Capital Co., Ltd. is wholly-owned by Ant Technology Group Co., Ltd.; the new shareholder Guangxi Tencent Venture Capital Co., Ltd. holds 14.11%, and Guangxi Tencent Ventures Investment Co., Ltd. is wholly-owned by Shenzhen Tencent Industrial Investment Fund Co., Ltd. At the same time, Fuyou Payment's shareholding ratio was diluted to 8.29% from 15.28% before the change.
According to the analysis of "Payment Encyclopedia", compared with the previous integration of payment financing tending to "stand-in", Lichuscan accepts financial investment from Tencent and Ant at the same time, and is able to balance its own roles and fully integrate the ecological capabilities of Alipay and WeChat Pay. Unrestricted during business expansion. The reason why Lichu Scanner can stand alone when the giants compete is related to its own product capabilities and ecological capabilities.
According to the information on the official website of Lichu Scan, Lichu Scan was established in 2011 and is one of the earliest domestic technology companies engaged in the R&D and application of aggregate payment technology. Currently, Lichu has 1 R&D and 16 operation centers in China, covering In major cities across the country, there are more than 870,000 merchants under its umbrella, 15 million transactions are processed daily, and the annual transaction amount is 200 billion yuan. It is a comprehensive solution for the digital operation of hundreds of industry providers.
As for the use of financing, Lichu Scanner is in a period of rapid business growth, and the market layout, products, technology, and services all need to be further improved, which will inevitably consume a lot of funds. In the last round of financing in Li Chu Saw, founder Wang Peng revealed that the funds will be used for company upgrades, especially to increase operating staff and strengthen service processing capabilities.
As far as the business layout of Lichu Scanner is concerned, a considerable part of its energy is being focused on medium and large-scale merchant groups, through innovative value-added products. Lichu Scanner is positioned as a merchant digital operation operator, under its umbrella is the aggregate payment brand "Scanner", the merchant digital service SaaS platform "fu+", and the merchant digital marketing platform "Laiwisdom". This also means that merchants are more dependent on Li Chu sweeping during the whole operation process, and merchants are more active.
Aggregated payment is an important part of opening up the "last mile" of mobile payment, and mastering rich merchant data resources and traffic portals. Therefore, various capital and Internet giants have thrown olive branches, and even spent heavily on strategic investments or acquisitions. Both Alipay and WeChat Pay previously talked about the significance of service providers to them, especially the deployment of code plates and the expansion and maintenance of merchants.
Among payment links involving multiple parties, compared with banks, third-party payment institutions, and clearing institutions, fourth-party payment (aggregated payment service providers) have the most thorough understanding of the business needs of merchants. Relying on the down-to-earth business model, aggregate payment quickly occupied the market through "multi-code aggregation" payment methods, and ushered in the first wave of investment and financing peaks from 2015 to 2016.
Beginning in 2016, a number of unicorns and quasi-unicorns have emerged in the aggregate payment track, and they have rapidly increased in size under the boost of capital. After a round of code battles and subsidy battles, the aggregate payment industry was shuffled violently. In the end, the aggregate payment service providers such as Collecting Money, Qian Fang Hao Jin, Li Chu Scan, Duo La Bao, and Pay Ba came to the fore. In January of this year, the Shanghai Securities Regulatory Bureau disclosed the "Report Publicity of CICC on the Counseling and Filing of Shanghai Shouqianba Internet Technology Co., Ltd.", which means that Shouqianba will officially sprint to the GEM listing.
From the perspective of the evolution of the aggregate payment business, the current aggregate payment event has entered the second half. After the tagging boom, two problems surrounding the aggregation of payment service providers emerged: one is that the aggregation payment products are relatively thin, but the aggregation of multiple payment channels is only the aggregation of multiple payment channels, and the ability to serve merchants is too light; the other is the lack of ability to deepen the scene, leading to the industry The threshold is low, and the service model is easy to be replaced.
Payment without scenes is destined to have no lasting stickiness, no thresholds and barriers. In the era of barcode scanning, the aggressive expansion mode of aggregating service providers has faded. The sinking of demand at merchants has become the key to mobile payment in the second half.
A head aggregation payment service provider once analyzed to "Payment Encyclopedia" that there are two typical features of the future digital transformation of merchants, one is a light and large-screen cash register device, and the other is an offline installment strategy. Lightweight large-screen devices represented by Dragonfly and Frog can allow users to take the initiative to operate, improve the traditional cash register mode, and increase cash register efficiency and membership conversion rate. The post-90s' enthusiasm for installment will open up space for service providers to provide financial value-added services.
Large and medium-sized merchants are important targets for the second half of the competition in aggregate payment because they have strong payment capabilities and space for value-added services. At present, payment sharing is still the main source of income for aggregate payment service providers, but in the context of service upgrades, service providers can no longer be pure payment service providers, but transform into service providers that provide mobile payment solutions.