Tencent’s WeChat Wallet lands in Hong Kong, beating Apple Pay as public migrates to mobile payments

Tencent’s WeChat has rolled out its WeChat Wallet service to users in Hong Kong, according to a blog post, putting it ahead of Apple’s mobile payment service Apple Pay that is slated to arrive in the city later this year.

Hong Kong users who are part of the pilot programme will be able to link their Hong Kong credit cards to the service and purchase items using the WeChat app including movie and flight tickets.

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A source close to the company said it may take “several months” before the payment service is rolled out to all WeChat users in the city.

However, local users of WeChat Wallet now lack full access to all the features enjoyed in mainland China.

For example, Hong Kongers are not able to transfer money to friends within the app or make in-store payments by having the cashier scan a QR code on their smartphone in a convenience store.

Also missing is the Red Packet function, which allows WeChat users in China to send an amount of money to a group chat that is either identically or randomly split among other users who open the virtual red packet.