Challenge

UseePay is a D2C-focused payment service provider for Chinese brands. As demand from Chinese merchants going global accelerated, UseePay needed to move quickly into international markets such as the US, Europe and broader Asia Pacific.

As a newer provider in European markets, UseePay had limited brand recognition among Chinese merchants. Building trust took longer, prolonging the merchant onboarding and activation cycle.

The fragmentation of global payment methods also led to a heavy engineering burden; teams spent weeks integrating individual local payment methods rather than focusing on core product development. This slowed down both UseePay's product iteration cadence and customer onboarding speed. As buy now, pay later (BNPL) services tightened policies for non-local entities, UseePay needed a partner that could ensure continued access to flexible payment options for its merchants and customers. At the fund settlement level, cumbersome multicurrency account operations and high manual reconciliation costs also limited financial efficiency.

To resolve these bottlenecks, UseePay sought a financial infrastructure partner capable of supporting rapid global expansion. The goal was to use an easily integrated platform to quickly launch services and deploy local payment methods in different markets, while improving payment collection efficiency and effectiveness for merchants.

Solution

To achieve global scale, UseePay partnered with Stripe, integrating Stripe Connect and Stripe Payments to create a unified financial layer. This enabled UseePay to expand into international markets swiftly, improve overall operational efficiency and maintain compliance in different countries and regions.

Stripe Connect allows UseePay to onboard merchants, conduct Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements and handle multiparty fund flow management while automating merchant settlements. At the same time, Stripe assumes certain essential compliance obligations within these processes, enabling UseePay to operate compliantly in multiple markets without needing to apply for payment licences in each region. This significantly reduced operational complexity and accelerated entry into new markets.

Stripe Payments provides UseePay merchants with multicurrency processing and instant access to local payment methods, directly improving conversion and authorisation rates. With Stripe's unified API architecture, UseePay can activate local payment methods – including credit cards, digital wallets, BNPL options and bank transfers – in days rather than months. This low-code approach allows the engineering team to reallocate resources towards enhancing the core product and merchant experience.

UseePay's next phase required a different kind of support. Through Stripe premium support, UseePay worked with a dedicated Stripe Technical Account Manager (TAM) to migrate Custom Connect, gaining more control over merchant onboarding. The TAM also helped UseePay activate cross-border BNPLs for its merchant base and build an optimised dispute and fraud management system.

Results

Nine percent average monthly growth in total transaction volume

Since integrating Stripe, UseePay has maintained a trajectory of steady expansion, with total volume growing 9% month over month and reaching 2.7x the previous year's levels. This stable growth underscores how unified financial infrastructure enables merchants to scale across borders with greater agility.

Seven percent average monthly growth in merchant acquisition

With Stripe Connect's automated onboarding process, UseePay now activates new merchants within days. The merchant base has grown at a monthly average of 7%, more than doubling year over year. The simplified onboarding and integration process allows UseePay to support Chinese merchants in conducting business in the US, Europe and broader Asia-Pacific markets with significantly reduced time to market.

Average lift in payment authorisation rates of 2%–3%

UseePay's merchants saw improved payment authorisation rates across all business segments, averaging an increase of 2%–3%. By providing a localised payment experience that aligns with customer preferences, UseePay has successfully driven higher conversion rates for its merchants.

UseePay halves its fraud rate and grows BNPL to 9% of volume

With automated fraud management in place, UseePay's monthly fraud rate dropped from 0.36% to 0.16%. At the same time, BNPL processing, a channel that had been difficult to access for non-local merchants, grew to 9% of UseePay's monthly payment volume on Stripe.