Tencent executive says WeChat Pay will soon be available 'in all places'
are coming down as Chinese companies rush to comply with Beijing's crackdown on alleged monopolistic practices.
Mobile pay took off in the last decade to become the dominant form of consumer payment in mainland China, surpassing cash and credit cards. Tencent's WeChat Pay and Alipay — run by Alibaba affiliate Ant Group — are the most popular, covering the majority of the mainland population of 1.4 billion people.
But fierce rivalry between the companies meant that for years, consumers buying products on Alibaba's Taobao e-commerce app could only pay with Alipay. That's about to change. "As for payment, we also hope in the near future, in all places, users can freely choose. It's also a show of fairness," Lei Maofeng, vice-general manager of WeChat Pay, said Wednesday at CNBC's annualconference in the Nansha district of Guangzhou, China. That's according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language remarks.
He did not share a specific timeframe, and did not respond directly to a question on whether WeChat Pay was in discussions with Alibaba.