INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
China payments giants have taken their battle to Hong Kong
Less than a week after Ant Financial announced adding QR codes to the city MTR public transport network of rail, Tencent WeChat Pay
unveiled a similar scheme on Wednesday.
Starting mid-2021, commuters in Hong Kong can scan a barcode to enter the subway turnstile through
WeChat Pay, the digital wallet linked to Tencent popular messaging app
That a year behind Alibaba payments affiliate Alipay, which claims to enable QR codes for MTR in mid-2020.
Both Alipay and WeChat Pay are
making this scan-to-ride option available tovisitors from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong residents.
Hong Kong has become a testing
ground for the Chinese e-wallet titans going global due to the city geographic adjacency and cosmopolitan population.Its market of 740
million people also offers growth potential as mobile payments adoption is still nascent
In a survey conducted by theHong Kong Productivity Council, only 30 percent of the respondents said they had paid with mobile devices, while
most locals are accustomed to credit cards and cash.
By contrast, 92 percent of China 970 million mobile users havepaid on smartphones,
according to a July report from consulting firmIpsos.
Cracking the Hong Kong market isn&t easy
For years, locals have used the stored-value Octopus card to pay for everything from MTR rides to convenient store purchases
The card system, which is 57.4 percent owned by MTR, claims to cover 99 percent of the city population.
Time will tell whether the payments
newcomers couldreplicate their success in their neighboring city
On the Mainland side, WeChat Pay took off after a series of marketing campaigns that involved users fighting for cash-filled digital packets
on WeChat.Alipay, on the other hand, traced much of its success to its ties with Alibaba ecommerce platforms, which don&t accept WeChat
Pay.
In Hong Kong, the rivals have introduced redeem programs and shelled out generous subsidies to vie for shoppers
AlipayHK said in June that it crossed 1.5 million users, up from one million in March
WeChat Pay Hong Kong is keeping mum about its user base but a company executivesaid in November that the wallet scored more than ten times
growth in transactions over the past year.
