Wirecard was also the company that helped Alipay launch in Europe in 2015.

For every retailer targeting Chinese customers in the segment of luxury, of travel, of entertainment, this is a must-have payment option,' Markus Eichinger, executive vice president of global product strategy at Wirecard, told CNBC in an interview ahead of the launch. Shopping is a substantial part of the shopping journey. 'Right now the problem is many Chinese travelers don't have the right payment instruments. WeChat has been criticised for a lack of transparency regarding user data, privacy and security because WeChat is used for nearly everything, the user data it collects is immense. Meanwhile, Alipay recently released numbers that put its active user number at 450 million people. Tencent said that in China it has 600 million active users of WeChat Pay. As it turns out, Tencent, the company that owns the payment system WeChat Pay, has been testing out palm-print payment devices in the country for months, according to social media posts. It's a lucrative market, one that Tencent is hoping to capture.īut it will have to catch up with Alipay which launched in Europe in 2015 and has since expanded to other destinations like South Africa. When they go abroad, they want these same services.Ĭhinese tourists were the highest spending in 2016, splashing a total $261 billion abroad, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. Chinese consumers are very used to using mobile payment services like WeChat Pay for everything from ride-hailing services to shopping. The move is specifically aimed at Chinese tourists coming to Europe and is not necessarily a challenger to the likes of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, both of which operate in parts of Europe. Tencent -owned WeChat, China’s largest messaging app and one of the country’s biggest payment services, will begin supporting the country’s sovereign digital currency. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or Lower 2 Users of digital wallets from China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom can now make payments by scanning WeChat QR codes, in Tencent’s latest effort to improve interoperability of tech. Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit

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