Fading hopes for full access to the Chinese market and competition from world-leading innovators such as Alipay and WeChat have not been enough to blunt global payments groups’ plans for big growth in China and the wider Asian region. 

With a mobile payments market 50 times bigger than the US’s, China offers rich rewards for western payments companies. Foreign groups also have high hopes for other big Asian markets such as India, and smaller countries where cash is dominant and payments systems are in their infancy. 

“The opportunity for us is quite frankly all ahead of us and doubling our business on a regular basis is something (we can do),” says Rohan Mahadevan, chief executive of PayPal APAC, speaking of PayPal’s opportunity globally and in his region.