Travel abroad now and you may not even need take your credit card out of your wallet, for third party payment giants Alipay and WeChat have infiltrated and are now head to head in the western world.
WeChat last week launched payment options in Europe, a big step for the APP which now has approximately one billion active users. WeChat’s launch is in direct competition with Alipay, which has been operating in Europe since 2015.
With predicted success Tencent (WeChat’s operator) shall likely next move into the United States, servicing mainly tourist areas, again in direct competition with Alipay. Tencent plans to partner up with Silicon Valley based mobile company CITCON.
WeChat pay is now available in 15 countries and in 12 currencies, while Alipay, as of April 2017, had support in place for over 100 thousand offline stores in 26 countries in Europe, North America, East Asia and Southeast Asia.
