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WeChat is crazy big in China, to the point where you use it to pay for almost anything. It has allowed even the extremely rural to digitise their payments - eve

WeChat is crazy big in China, to the point where you use it to pay for almost anything. It has allowed even the extremely rural to digitise their payments - every stall has a QR code that you can scan and transfer money to. The payment feature scales up very quickly, allowing you to do everything from book cabs through the app through to splitting restaurant bills with other people. It's more than just a messaging app - it's more like a mash-up of WhatsApp, PayPal, Twitter and Facebook. Things that WeChat had before WhatsApp were things like "Moments" which WhatsApp adopted quite recently (and in a more simpler way) as "Status"[0] and they also had very strong business integration which WhatsApp only recently began to flirt with through WhatsApp for Business[1]. [0] https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/android/26000031/ https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/android/26000031/ [1] https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000637/Introducing-the-WhatsApp-Business-App https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000637/Introducing-the-WhatsApp-...

yourapostasy 9y ago
> The payment feature scales up very quickly, allowing you to do everything from book cabs through the app through to splitting restaurant bills with other people. Weixin Pay's pricing for money handling seems pretty competitive compared to Western systems. 0.1% to transfer out of their system to your bank if you are transferring >$3200 USD, and 0.6% to process a payment [1]. I wonder when Weixin Pay and startups like Payoneer [2] will get tired of the friction imposed by the current banking interchange systems, and set up their own identity and interchange solution to start breaking 1% on all of a transaction life cycle's service fees (from payer removing from their account and paying, to payee accepting and debiting to their account, perhaps including forex conversion, to final settlement). [1] https://chinachannel.co/take-wechat-payments-small-business/ https://chinachannel.co/take-wechat-payments-small-business/ [2] https://www.payoneer.com/fees/ https://www.payoneer.com/fees/

yourapostasy 9y ago

> The payment feature scales up very quickly, allowing you to do everything from book cabs through the app through to splitting restaurant bills with other people. Weixin Pay's pricing for money handling seems pretty competitive compared to Western systems. 0.1% to transfer out of their system to your bank if you are transferring >$3200 USD, and 0.6% to process a payment [1]. I wonder when Weixin Pay and startups like Payoneer [2] will get tired of the friction imposed by the current banking interchange systems, and set up their own identity and interchange solution to start breaking 1% on all of a transaction life cycle's service fees (from payer removing from their account and paying, to payee accepting and debiting to their account, perhaps including forex conversion, to final settlement). [1] https://chinachannel.co/take-wechat-payments-small-business/ https://chinachannel.co/take-wechat-payments-small-business/ [2] https://www.payoneer.com/fees/ https://www.payoneer.com/fees/