Reports confirm that Tencent, the Chinese Technology giant has announced the launch of its own UPI-enabled Payment app ‘WeChat Pay’ in India and with this move it would be joining its major global peers Amazon, WhatsApp, Xiomi and Google.
Sources familiar with the matter informed that Tencent will function only under the UPI ecosystem and has also partnered with HDFC Bank, ICICI bank and Axis Bank to have its own UPI handle, @wechat. Apparently, the app would be introduced by the end of May-June. It would be just like Google Pay, which functions only under UPI ecosystem.
It has also been reported that the company’s senior officials met NPCI officials (National Payment Corporation of India) to obtain a license for fully developed payments app.
According to the reports, in China, WeChat Pay from Tencent is the second most favorable payments app after Alipay. Sources confirmed that last year this app had crossed more active users than Alipay, which had 520 million users in early 2018. Now the digital payments space has become more competitive, sources commented.
Supposedly, the main objective of Tencent is to introduce an UPI-based payments app in India at a time when one of its most successful games, PUBG, has been garnering instant popularity in the country.
For the uninitiated, Tencent is a multinational investment company in China, founded in 1988, whose subsidiaries are specialized in several internet related products and services, artificial intelligence, and entertainment in China as well as globally.
Tencent is known for its popular games and it is the world’s biggest gaming company, one of the world’s largest social media companies as well as the most important technology conglomerates worldwide and is counted amongst world’s biggest investment corporations and venture capital firms.
Its services comprise of web portals, social network music, internet services, smartphones, multiplayer online games, and mobile games which are some of world’s reputed, largest and most successful in their respective genres.