Staff from Weixin’s R&D team revealed to local portal Sohu that the popular chatting app will soon launch its mobile payment service. Accordingly the function will be realized in the form of a “payment card” on Weixin’s platform, and be connected to Tencent’s online payment service Tenpay.
This payment card would be a second card service Weixin ever offered after the membership card released by Tencent’s loyalty business. Actually behind the scenes of Weixin’s O2O products there stands the lifestyle e-commerce division of Tencent who takes all of these in good care.
Apart from the two “cards”, this team has also been running the official account called WeiLife Membership Card. Data from the company said that over 61884 rooms from chain-hotel Hanting were booked by users of Weixin membership card. Furthermore, the daily booked rooms by this user group added up to 638, bringing the hotel almost RMB 178,000 per day.
Since the partnership between Weixin and Tenpay was announced last September, this to-be-launched mobile payment function has long been expected by many. The new service together with the membership card, Tencent news and game center implies a further reach from the traditional businesses to the mobile. In a conference call from last week, president Martin Lau confirmed that a mobile game platform is also to be offered soon. The first batch will be three free SPG games, developed by the Interactive Entertainment Group of Tencent.
As to the rumor that Weixin would start charging the official accounts services, sources said it was not true. After loaded with games, O2O businesses, and mobile payment, the monetizing approach of Weixin has surfaced step by step.
image credit: hexun.com
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