SHANGHAI, China, Dec. 15 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- On Nov 21, 2008, in order to celebrate its 90 anniversary since entering into the China market, American Express held a forum in the Shanghai Financial Center under the theme "Open Global Doors," inviting top companies in related industries to talk on the latest headlines about the economy in China and the world; China's mobile payment leader SmartPay attended the forum.
The forum consisted of three keynote speeches by John Thorton, Dr. Henry Kissenger, and American Express CEO, Ken Chenault, respectively, which were then followed by question & answer sessions. SmartPay CEO, Edward Wu, and Ken Chenault shared their opinions on new payment solutions for 500 companies like American Express. China, as a massive emerging market, attracted numerous companies to send their teams to open up new businesses; however, as China's market is rather scattered, most companies find it difficult to reach the whole market with traditional approaches, such as setting up actual branches or offices. Edward suggested mobile phone solutions, like mobile payments, should be applied more during the process; China has over 600 million mobile phone users, meaning that if business networks can be built up through mobile phones, the coverage and efficiency cannot be challenged. Ken Chenault agreed with the idea, expressing that under the current economic situations, lowering costs is one of the top priorities for all companies; time consuming and expensive methods of market penetration should be replaced by new solutions. Mobile phone payments and other applications should play an important role.
About SmartPay
SmartPay provides remote payment services in China under the brand name "Jieyin". Chinese consumers and intermediaries utilize SmartPay Jieyin for the payment of mobile services, utilities, travel-related expenses and other expenditures. SmartPay continues to launch additional payment services under the "Jieyin" brand name. Investors in SmartPay include RRE Ventures ( http://www.rre.com ), Evolution Capital, Lunar Group Capital, Accel Partners and others.
