WeChat Pay is expanding into the United Kingdom next month. China's biggest mobile payments platform in terms of number of transactions will offer a new payment option to British retailers looking to attract Chinese shoppers.
In the UK, WeChat Pay has linked up with the British payments company Tramonex, which will help WeChat Pay integrate its payments infrastructure with British retailers.
WeChat Pay's foray into Italy in 2015 enabled Italian merchants to accept mobile payments from Chinese customers by scanning a barcode.
France and Germany are to be next European destinations for WeChat Pay, which has 800 million users in China, thanks to WeChat, China's largest social media network in terms of daily users.
They use WeChat Pay in wide-ranging ways: for restaurants bills, online and offline shopping, digital transactions for hotel bookings and travel tickets, and even to pay street vendors.
WeChat Pay's European expansion follows that of Alipay, another Chinese mobile payment company, which is an affiliate of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.
With two years of operating history in the UK, Alipay has linked up with powerful European banks, including BNP Paribas, Barclays and UniCredit, enabling 930,000 merchants to join its payment network.
In the UK, Alipay is accepted at many luxury stores and brand retailers, including Harrods in London. Alipay has 450 million active users in China.
WeChat Pay is expanding into the United Kingdom next month. China's biggest mobile payments platform in terms of number of transactions will offer a new payment option to British retailers looking to attract Chinese shoppers.
