Alibaba Group Holding has announced that China’s largest online marketplaces, Taobao and Tmall, will soon accept Tencent Holdings’ WeChat Pay for all purchases in a landmark cooperation deal that had long separated the ecosystems of the country’s biggest technology firms.
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Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall have issued notices on their platforms on Wednesday to solicit feedback from merchants about accepting WeChat Pay, known as Weixin Pay in China, as an additional payment method, paving the way for Chinese consumers to use the country’s second-largest mobile payment system on the popular e-commerce sites on top of Alipay, the system run by Alibaba fintech affiliate Ant Group.
The announcement, which marks the biggest move yet in tearing down the walls between the two companies’ platforms, comes days after China’s market regulator ended its antitrust review of Alibaba, giving it full recognition years after its US$2.8 billion fine in 2021. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall Group said in a statement that it has “actively explored interoperability and partnerships with our peers”, while Tencent said its Weixin Pay “is always open to working with partners to offer convenient, compliant and secure transactions for consumers”.
WeChat Pay and Alipay together control 90 per cent of China’s mobile payments market.