Tencent and state-owned UnionPay to merge QR code systems for mobile payments in China
- Tencent will share a common QR code system for mobile payments with China’s state-owned UnionPay, under a new partnership
- Currently, merchants have to offer different codes for each payment service
Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings is working to integrate its QR code system for mobile payments with state-owned China UnionPay, giving the latter a bigger slice of the hotly-contested industry.
With the common QR code system, merchants could provide users of WeChat Pay – the mobile payment service within Tencent’s ubiquitous messaging and social media app WeChat – and UnionPay’s Quickpass with the same code to make payments, Chinese media Caixin reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Currently, merchants have to offer different codes for each payment service.
A Tencent spokesman confirmed the Caixin report and said that the company’s fintech arm, Tenpay, is collaborating with UnionPay on relevant services on a trial basis. UnionPay did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The unified QR code system has started testing on Android devices in eastern China’s Fuzhou city, Caixin reported, adding that Tencent and UnionPay have also agreed to work together on facial recognition-based payments.
The tie-up would open up a space for UnionPay as a third major player in China’s hotly-contested payments market, currently dominated by a duopoly of WeChat Pay and Alipay by Ant Financial. WeChat Pay and Alipay jointly accounted for over 90 per cent of China’s mobile payments in 2018, data from China Internet Watch showed.
Alipay is not involved in similar negotiations with UnionPay, according to Caixin. Ant Financial, affiliate to the Post’s parent company Alibaba, declined to comment for this story.