While those of us in the U.S. experiment with Venmo or Apple Pay, payments in China have reached the point where even large transactions are routinely processed via the smartphone, even tuition payments.

Western Union, which operates a money transfer service in the region via a partnership with Chinese payment solutions provider Geoswift, has allowed students to make payments via Alipay and Tenpay since mid-2016.

About a third of the service’s tuition payments from China are now paid via Alipay, Adam Tiberi, senior vice president, strategy and product at Western Union Business Solutions told Bank Innovation in an email. China currently represents 30% of all international students across the globe, said Tiberi.

Western Union announced a partnership with the other essential Chinese mobile payments service, WeChat Pay, yesterday, enabling students to use the service to send tuition payments through its GlobalPay for Students platform. Tiberi said:

Today, approximately 35% of our tuition payments from China are being paid via Alipay. Now that we have enabled WeChat Pay it will be interesting to see how this changes the student behavior and payment choice. We also allow Chinese students to pay through local online bank transfer or their UnionPay debit and credit card.

Western Union’s approach in the country is similar to that of other U.S. companies looking for a way to tap into the Chinese mobile payment market, something difficult not only due to the tight grip of Alipay and Wechat Pay on the mobile customer but also because of shifting regulations, Tiberi said.

Tiberi told Bank Innovation via email:

China is a more complicated market to move money out of and into due to strict regulations and changing monetary policies. It also has its own payment types and consumer preferences that have grown from its unique ecosystem. For these reasons it absolutely required a different strategy and approach. Several years ago, we elected to partner with a payment expert in the China market, Geoswift, to give us local knowledge of consumer preferences, payment trends, regulations and access to the local payment options.

The necessity of such partnerships is somewhat surprisingly mirrored in Ant Financial’s approach to markets outside of China — its long saga with U.S. payments service MoneyGram comes to mind — even though in the U.S., mobile payments remain at best, a curiosity, and certainly not one intriguing enough to inspire a mortgage, tuition, or other large financial transaction.

Based in Englewood, Colo., Western Union processed $82 billion in transactions between customers last year according to the company, in 276 million and 547 million customer and business payments, respectively.