The biggest feature of third-party payment institutions is convenience and speed. Taking Alipay International as an example, the basic process of its online cross-border transactions is: AliExpress sellers open online stores on the platform and publish products; when overseas buyers on the platform search for the product, they can directly place an order online after negotiating with the seller. The specific operation is that through the third-party payment tool “Alipay International”, the buyer pays to the AliExpress platform; the seller starts to ship after confirming that the buyer has paid; after the buyer receives the goods, he confirms receipt; the AliExpress platform releases the money to the seller. In this transaction process, the AliExpress platform plays a payment guarantee role in the transaction through the third-party payment service of “Alipay International”. It not only reduces the loss of orders caused by poor language communication between buyers and sellers and the fear of complicated processes, but also online transactions can effectively solve the dilemma of buyers worrying about not receiving goods after payment and sellers worrying about not receiving money after delivery in traditional trade, which is conducive to building trust between buyers and sellers, reducing communication costs, and promoting rapid order completion.
Since the entire process is completed online, there is no need for customers to submit paper instructions to the bank counter for processing, thus improving the efficiency of e-commerce payment and settlement. Compared with traditional settlement methods, they do not require banks as payment intermediaries, because the platform itself has intervened in the dispute resolution between buyers and sellers regarding whether goods are delivered in time, whether the quality of goods is the same as described, etc. In traditional settlement methods, banks, as payment intermediaries, do not intervene in disputes between buyers and sellers under the performance of the goods sales contract.
At the same time, third-party institutions can also provide customers with a series of value-added services such as export tax rebates, VAT payment, and supply chain financing based on cross-border trade platforms. It is precisely because electronic, paperless, low-threshold and low-cost meet the needs of small and high-frequency transactions that third-party payment institutions are increasingly becoming the choice of small and medium-sized sellers for cross-border trade.