Wechat (a Tencent corporation) and Alipay (an Alibaba corporation) will be mentioned equally in the article. Do not be fooled by this. These are two whales, these are the two cornerstones of the Chinese Internet and Chinese society, and if something appears for one, it will appear for the other as well.
Alipay owns 53.8% of the payments market, while Wechat has 39.9%.
You say "what about the cards." Well, I suggest you find at least one cash desk solution on the site of one of the largest acquirers of China Meituan , where you can use the card. Everything, absolutely everything is imprisoned under Alipay and Wechat.
In this regard, by the way, wise Chinese fully understand the importance of competition. Airlines with state capital were created 3. Cellular operators - 3. Banks - 4. The Chinese are well aware of what the state (or other) monopoly is fraught with and strive to separate them. When China Southern began to stand out too much from competitors, it was asked to voluntarily and compulsorily allocate part of the capital to create a subsidiary of Xiamen Airlines. Similarly, Shanghai Airlines was spun off from China Eastern. Air China - Shenzhen Airlines.
The same is true for online payments. Let Alipay and Wechat (which the state equally promotes) always catch up with each other. This is only good for everyone.
But back to the topic. And let's look at it with a practical example.
Recently, I went on a business trip. And since because of the pandemic there are quite a few paranoid people who want confirmation that I am not sick with coronavirus, I decided to take a certificate stating that I am not sick with it. What have I done for this? Well, I went to the nearest hospital, got a smear. What next?
Followed the hospital’s account in vichate, clicked on the “test results”:
Entered the phone, name, ID number, received SMS:
And clicked on "download help":
Didn't you notice the sequencing here? And it is (c)
In a previous article, I wrote that one of the methods of user authentication is his mobile phone. A SIM card in China can only be obtained after providing the biometrics of the person. And after entering this data, you can send a request "does the name and ID match." If the patient's full name matches the full name, to which the number was registered, to which the SMS with the code was sent, it is 99% that the patient wants to receive the test results.
Wechat and Alipay are trusted. They are trusted by all without exception. Their rating is a great example.
Wechat has Wechat Pay Points, Alipay has Sesame Credit. It is calculated by secret algorithms that are unknown to anyone, but everyone can experience their result and its impact on himself:
- 350 —
- 550 — , ,
- 600 — chargeback . — — «». , « 15 »
- 700 — . — — . , QR-
- 900 — . 3,8%, Wechat >900 — 2,5%. ( — , 0,1% . Wechat/Alipay )
- 1000 ( ) — , .
Again, a real-world example is rental housing. When I registered with Ziroom, they considered some kind of internal magic that my rating was such and such.
How did I rent an apartment? I chose the ones I liked in the application and clicked "view". After that, I was given time and a 15-minute code from the castle. I looked, chose, lived a year. Then he moved to Shenzhen and returned her. I clicked "return the apartment" in the application:
And he left. Already on the train, the message "do you confirm the balance of meters" caught up with me:
I pressed yes and drove on. The next morning I received the full payment and the 400 yuan overpayment was returned to the account.
That being said, don't confuse Ziroom with sharages like AirBNB. On the basis of the contract with Ziroom, I formalized a tax deduction for rental housing without unnecessary movements (screen from the tax application). To do this, I needed only the contract number and my name / ID:
What am I doing ... A similar level of service trust to a user, an unthinkable, impossible level of trust is possible only here.
And it is based on Wechat / Alipay.
That is why all competitors are pathetic.
You can say anything, but I trust Alipay and Wechat. Yes, they are paranoid, yes, they can block the account before confirming something there, yes, they mercilessly track abnormal transactions and block any money changers, yes, they can report to the bank and your account will be closed (on this topic, a howl is most often heard from parties of illegal money changers and cash-in workers). But if you ask me - I believe them 100%.
You can ask any Chinese if he trusts them. You will hear many complaints on the topic “tied the card and demanded to confirm”, “tapped the bank on the subject of a large transfer without justification”, “demanded to throw off the printout of transactions from the bank”. But cutting them off and asking "do you believe?" - everyone will answer "yes".
And it is at the junction of trust in Alipay / Wechat on the part of the state, population, banks and services that something of this scale is born.
Say what you want, but Wechat is the first thing that I miss abroad.
Thanks for your attention