tencent china wechat pay mauskharpalcnbc

Payment technology developments aim for convenience and ease of use, and for users to feel like they are at home even while travelling, with no need to worry about currency exchange rates, Chen said. In 2016, Tencent launched WeChat Pay HK in Hong Kong with transaction growth exceeding ten-fold last year.Īlthough it’s difficult for Chen to forecast the trend of mobile payments for the next three years because the system has been in use for just four years in China, his guess is that developments could speed up and cover more business sectors. “The outcome is beyond our expectations, and we are expecting the digital wallet in Malaysia will grow faster than in others and even faster than in Hong Kong,” Chen said. The WeChat Malaysia’s payment feature will enable local businesses to engage with their customers under the same platform, and make or transfer payments in Malaysian ringgit. In August this year, WeChat launched payment features in Malaysia called WeChat Pay My, its first market in Asia beyond mainland China and Hong Kong.

The payment feature integrated into the WeChat app is now supported by merchants in over 40 countries, including Thailand. WeChat Pay has about 800 million active monthly users, most of them Chinese nationals, according to Tencent. WeChat Pay service is currently provided in Thailand for Chinese tourists, to ensure they have a good experience while away from home.Ĭhina remains the largest contributor in terms of both arrivals and tourism revenue to Thailand and, on average, they spend more than other tourists – above Bt5,000 per person a day, according to data from the tourism authority.Ĭhinese accounted for nearly one-third of last year’s record 35 million arrivals but the number began to fall in August this year, plunging 11.77 per cent from a year earlier due to a boat accident that killed over 40 Chinese in Phuket in early July. However, the firm has no timeline to launch WeChat Pay Thailand, he added. Thailand is a key market for the company, given the huge number of users of WeChat, Tencent’s popular social network, Chen said. “A local partner is important,” Chen stressed several times during the interview. Tencent is thinking about partnering with certain Thai business sectors, particularly banks, to provide the service because payment needs to be localised in different countries. “We are considering which approach – doing the payment service by ourselves or working with local partners – is more suitable to launch WeChat Pay Thailand,” Chen told a group interview for Thai media on Wednesday in Hangzhou.Ĭhen is responsible for the product planning and operation in both the China and international payment services for the company.

As mobile payments experience rapid growth in the region, Chinese Internet giant Tencent Holdings is considering launching WeChat Pay, its digital payments platform service, in Thailand, says Royal Chen, vice president of financial technology for Tencent.

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