Tencent has partnered with Wirecard, a Germany-based payments service provider, to launch its WeChat Pay payments service in Europe.
European retailers will be able to accept payments made via WeChat Pay, a social media application that incorporates P2P and mobile payments. The new payments method will be implemented by Wirecard.
The launch of the payments service in Europe is aimed at Chinese tourists, who prefer to make mobile payments when shopping overseas. They have also been the largest spending group of tourists in Europe, spending more than USD 261 billion abroad.
The launch of WeChat Pay in Europe will put Tencent in direct competition with Alipay, which has been present on the continent since 2015. Both Chinese payments services have been made available via Wirecard, which acts as an acquirer, centralizing and processing all the transactions for a retailer.
Chinese tourists can open their WeChat wallet feature, show the barcode on their smartphone to the retailer, and the shop assistant will scan the code to activate the payment process. The solution will be ready to go live in November 2017.
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