WeChat Hops On the Guangzhou Metro

WeChat Pay is commonly regarded as the platform of choice for small purchases, and it’s moves like one of its most recent that cement that point nicely. Recently, the Guangzhou Metro system added WeChat as an option for paying for a seat on the public transit system, and as it turns out, this is just the the latest move in an ongoing war for the hearts, minds, and fares of public transit users.

Tencent and Alibaba, at last report, have been in a knock-down, drag-out brawl in a bid to get their payment platforms onto the various public transportation systems. With this move, Tencent has managed to get the WeChat messaging system—rather, a quick response (QR) code generated by a mini-program contained within the WeChat messaging app itself—into use as a payment method for passage on Guangzhou Metro lines. The QR code can be scanned by turnstiles at the various gates in just 0.3 seconds, making it a comparatively seamless payment method.

What’s more, the way this is set up allows users to use offline payments as well, letting users effectively rack up a small tab that is paid off when the next online connection is available. That’s likely to prove useful with subways and similar transit systems where online connectivity isn’t always readily available.

It’s not just subways that have caught the major mobile payments systems’ attention; Tencent has mobile payments service options in place on bus lines in 11 Chinese cities, and Alipay has hit 18 major cities rapidly.

The problem with this whole fight is that it’s really not that big a fight. It’s not that hard for a subway line, bus line, or any other to offer more than one payment platform. We’re already seeing this; it’s a safe bet that any bus line that takes Tencent for payment is also taking ten cents, so to speak, in pure cash money. So anywhere where Alipay is in play, there’s little reason—unless there’s some sort of contract set up—that the bus line or whatever couldn’t also take Tencent or UnionPay.

Such a plan is actually better for the bus line and for its consumers; why deliberately discriminate against anyone’s payment platform of choice? We’ll likely see more expansion all over, unless something deliberately prevents such expansion.