Traffic in the capital city of Beijing, China. (Image credit: Flickr/Remko Tanis)
WeChat Pay is integrating its credit scoring system WeChat Pay Points with ride-hailing mini programs. Users whose credit scores meet minimum requirements are eligible to waive ride pre-payments, Chinese tech media PingWest reported.
Why it matters: WeChat Pay is kicking off integrating of its credit scoring service with ride-hailing platforms just before a peak travel period during China’s week-long National Day holiday.
Details: Jisu Dache, the ride-hailing platform backed by a joint venture between automaker Geely, Tencent, and the country’s railway operator, is the first mini program to link with WeChat Pay Points. Riders can waive the payments required for booking a ride. Features for the WeChat Pay Points system can be activated from the mini program.
- For qualified users, the bill is automatically deducted from their WeChat Pay account after the trip ends.
- Jisu Dache is an aggregator for various ride-booking services including Caocao Chuxing, Shouqi Limousine & Chauffeur, and Shenzhou. Mini apps for Baidu Map and AutoNavi, also aggregator platforms, will be connected to WeChat Pay Points as well.
- Some ride-hailing services require riders to pay prior to every trip, while others only require prepayment for longer rides, such as from one city to another.
Context: This January, Tencent began testing WeChat Pay Points in numerous cities around China, basing user scores on spending behavior and personal connections, among others.
- The system is similar to Ant Financial’s Sesame Credit, which calculates user credit scores based on user data collected through its mobile payment app and e-commerce platform.
- Tencent and Alibaba, operators of mega consumer platforms, hold troves of consumer data. The two companies reportedly refused to share consumer credit information and data with government-backed credit scoring company Baihang.
- Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing currently dominates more than 85% of the market, with more than 550 million users on its platform. It is also one of the eight internet companies working with Baihang on its consumer credit database.
- Alibaba’s map service AutoNavi has around 144.8 million monthly active users (MAUs) as of June, according to big data monitoring platform Trustdata. The app launched a new in-app ride-hailing service in July last year.
- Baidu Maps, with around 85.4 million MAUs, started offering ride-hailing services in 2015.