Tencent Holdings’ Weixin Pay, a leading digital payment platform in China, is expanding its presence in Southeast Asia to capitalise on the post-Covid surge of mainland tourists, as the company moves to diversify beyond a lacklustre domestic market.
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“Over the last few years, we received a lot of feedback from merchants in Southeast Asia that they wanted our help in getting more Chinese tourists – that’s why we decided to focus on making sure that the local merchants are better served,” said Etienne Ng, regional director of Southeast Asia at Weixin Pay, in an interview earlier this week.
Weixin Pay and Alipay, the two dominant mobile payment services providers in China, are used by billions of mainland citizens. When travelling abroad, many prefer to use these familiar payment apps. The Tencent-owned payment platform is marketed as WeChat Pay to overseas users.
Alipay already serves Chinese travellers in countries like Singapore and Malaysia. Alipay is operated by Ant Group, a fintech affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, which owns the Post. Weixin Pay, which entered Singapore in 2018, has grown to include over 100,000 local merchants in its ecosystem, from the Lau Pa Sat hawker centre to bike-sharing service Anywheel.
Weixin Pay, linked to the domestic version of Tencent’s super app WeChat, on Tuesday announced a strategic cooperation with Singapore’s Sentosa Development Corporation and CapitaLand Group. The partnership aims to integrate services on the popular resort island into WeChat’s domestic ecosystem, addressing the needs of the rising number of Chinese tourists.
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China is Singapore’s largest source of tourists. In 2024, the city state welcomed 3.08 million visitors from China, a 130 per cent increase from the previous year, according to the Singapore Tourism Board. It remains below levels seen before the Covid-19 pandemic, suggesting potential for further growth this year.