WorldFirst Global Enterprise Marketplace Solution introduces an innovative yet robust global money transfer and remittance network to our Partners. Cutting across diverse business scenarios, WorldFirst makes cross-border monetary transfers and remittances smooth, convenient, and developer-friendly.

WorldFirst solutions advance the Partners for fast-pacing the development and integration cycles. Partners can access incredible features such as sandbox and integration testing tools before eventually launching the application into production. Our knowledge base articles exhibit an in-depth and comprehensive view of documents for WorldFirst features, enabling you to incorporate WorldFirst APIs into applications stress-free.

Basic concepts

The following terms are used in this document:

• Partner: A third-party agency authorized by Alipay that integrates with WorldFirst and supplies Customers with services such as remittance, disbursement, account binding, online tripartite, etc.
• Customer: A Merchant who receives services from a Partner. A Customer can access the WorldFirst website and perform business operations.
• Receiving Account: An account assigned by WorldFirst to receive funds within the WorldFirst Global Funding Network. Every Customer is assigned to a unique Receiving Account once the Customer completes the Customer onboarding process.
• Beneficiary: A beneficiary receives monetary or other forms of assets. Beneficiary refers to an individual who receives transfers through banks, electronic wallets, and transfer companies.
• Payer: The agency or individual that pays the Beneficiary.

Benefits

The following list shows the major benefits of using WorldFirst Global Enterprise Marketplace Solution:

Cost-Effectiveness: WorldFirst can significantly cut the international telegraphic transfer fees through domestic funds transfers and Alipay-owned global networks.

Timeliness: WorldFirst Customers can perform real-time payments and T+0/T+1 settlements for transferring to countries and regions by circumventing SWIFT.

Service Coverage: Asides from transferring to bank accounts, WorldFirst also supports transfers of funds to a variety of options such as Alipay wallets.

Flexibility: With great flexibility and rich capacities, WorldFirst is equipped with wide support for major logistic platforms to make payments, trade goods and services.

Compliance: Granted mainstream payment licenses in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and EU, WorldFirst works together with local compliance teams expertise in anti-money laundering and risk control.

How it works

With the WorldFirst Global Enterprise Marketplace Solution, the following roles are involved:

• Customer
• Partner
• WorldFirst

Figure 1. Relationship between Customer, Partner, and WorldFirst

For a Partner that has integrated with WorldFirst to process payout requests from Customers, the Partner needs to undergo the following workflow:

Customer onboarding process

To collect money with WorldFirst, the Customer needs to bind his or her account to WorldFirst. This process is called the Customer onboarding process. The following graphic demonstrates the steps to complete the Customer onboarding process:

Figure 2. Customer onboarding process

1. On the Partner's website, the Customer requests for account binding. This request binds the Customer's account on the Partner's platform with a WorldFirst account(WorldFirst login).
2. The Partner can redirect the Customer to WorldFirst with a redirection URL.
3. On the WorldFirst authorization page, the Customer can either log in to an existing WorldFirst account or register a new one.
4. WorldFirst completes the Customer onboarding process for the Customer and assigns a Receiving Account to the new Customer. Then, WorldFirst redirects the Customer to the Partner's website with a redirection URL.
5. The Partner returns the result of the account binding to the Customer.
6. The Partner needs to inquire about the Customer's Receiving Account with inquiryRaDetail API to retrieve necessary information before entering the Customer fund transfer process.
7. WorldFirst responds to the Partner with information about the Customer's Receiving Account.

Customer fund transfer process

Figure 3. Customer fund transfer process

The graphic illustrates the Customer fund transfer process with the following steps:

1. The Partner needs to make prefunding deposits prior to monetary transfers.

1. The Partner needs to contact WorldFirst and make offline deposits to a preallocated bank account.
2. After making the prefunding deposits, The Partner needs to inquire about the prefunding balance with the inquiryBalance API.
3. Once WorldFirst receives the prefunding deposits, WorldFirst notifies the Partner with the notifyVostroAccount API.

2. The Customer can create a transfer

1. The Partner needs to call the inquiryBalance API again to ensure sufficient prefunding balance.
2. (Optional) If the Customer launches a cross-currency transfer, the Partner needs to call the inquiryQuote API to retrieve the currency exchange rates.
3. The Partner calls the transfer API to create a transfer.
4. The Partner calls the inquiryTransfer API to inquire about the transfer result.
5. WorldFirst notifies the Partner about the transfer result with the notifyTransferResult API. The notification is asynchronous.

3. Once the transfer process is completed, the Customer can log in to the WorldFirst website to check account balance and perform other business operations.
4. WorldFirst pulls the Customer's transaction data from the Partner with the pullTransactionData API on the day after the transfer is initiated.

Fund flow during the transfer process

The following graphic describes the fund flow during the transfer process:

Figure 4. Fund flow

The graphic illustrates the fund flow for WorldFirst solutions as follows:

1. The Customer binds his or her account on the Partner's platform to WorldFirst and creates a Receiving Account with WorldFirst. This Receiving Account is used by the Customer to collect money with WorldFirst.
2. The Partner tops up to WorldFirst by making deposits through banking institutions.
3. The Customer transfers money from the Partner's platform to the Receiving Account allocated within the WorldFirst Global Funding Network.
4. Once the transfer process is completed, the Customer can log in to WorldFirst and withdraw funds to a selected bank account.

Features

For the main features of WorldFirst APIs, refer to the API list chapter.