Tencent apologises after plan to charge higher fees on some higher education payments via WeChat Pay stirs up trouble

Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings has apologised after facing a public backlash over higher fees for WeChat Pay transactions on university campuses in the country, and has pledged to take no charges on non-profit payments, such as tuition fees and canteen items.

Tencent, which runs one of the country’s two biggest digital payment services, found itself in hot water on Thursday after a number of Chinese universities said they would end usage of WeChat Pay on campus after the company signalled it would start charging fees on payments for some items.

In one example, Northwest University in Xian, capital of Shaanxi Province in central China, issued a statement saying it would suspend WeChat Pay from June 30 “to protect the interests of teachers and students” as Tencent had signalled it would start charging a 0.6 per cent transaction fee from July 1.

Amid the building furore, Tencent issued three consecutive statements on Thursday, apologising for “misunderstandings and confusion” and pledged to maintain its zero-rate policy for non-profit payments, such as tuition fees.

“With the continuous growth in the number of campus use cases and merchants, we found that some for-profit scenarios, such as e-commerce and hotel and tourism transactions, have [remained in] the zero-rate education subsidy [category], resulting in increasing costs,” said the Shenzhen-based company in one of those statements.

It added that the intention of making some adjustments was to rectify some payment areas, where fee rates were below the market average.