Pintec Technology Holdings Ltd. (“Pintec”;NASDAQ: PT), a leading independent fintech solutions provider, recently announced an agreement with China Unicom. As mentioned in its first nine months earnings call of 2019, Pintec will leverage its digital lending capabilities to enable China Unicom’s payment platform Unicompay to offer next-generation handset financing services to its broad base of subscribers.
Unicompay is the telecom operator’s third-party payment platform that runs “WO Wallet” and is committed to offering convenient and efficient payment solutions. As one of the largest telecom companies in China, China Unicom boasts 320 million mobile billing subscribers as of June 30, 2019.
Jointly developed with Pintec, the digital handset financing solution allows customers to buy mobile phones online and offline with zero or limited down payment, improving payment flexibility and access to financing.
The purchase process is fast and straightforward. After customers complete online applications for installment loans, Pintec will conduct real-time credit assessment based on internal and external data sources for financial institutions to make final credit decisions. The whole process takes only a few minutes.
“Pintec has accumulated rich experience in serving telecom operators. Before this, Pintec cooperated with China Telecom and China Mobile, providing them with widely proven digital installment loan solutions,” said Allen Dong, acting CEO of Pintec. “We have gained deep understanding of telecoms, their customers, and the mobile phone market through years of field research and training in hundreds of cities across China.”
The cooperation with China Unicom has made Pintec one of the few fintech companies in China that serve the country’s three largest telecom operators at the same time. “Our knowledge in handset financing can be readily replicated in markets outside of China and better serve local customers together with local telecom operators and other potential partners,” added Dong. Banking
The jointly developed financing services will also include 5G mobile phones, as China Unicom has been accelerating commercial deployment of 5G networks. With Pintec’s advanced fintech solutions, the services are expected to cover remote areas such as Tibet and Xinjiang in the near future.
Tao Guowei, vice president of marketing at Unicompay Co. Ltd., said that the services can integrate financial functions and communication technologies to realize efficient one-stop installment payment for users. By leveraging its substantial resources, China Unicom can conduct unified and multi-interface marketing activities to lure in and retain customers, which will also benefit Pintec’s partners within the ecosystem.
