Tencent's WeChat Pay to launch UPI app in India
Chinese internet giant Tencent is looking to enter the Indian payment market with a UPI-based WeChat Pay app.
Tencent has been in talks to obtain a license and reportedly hoped to launch its famous payment platform in India by June this year.
WeChat, Tencent’s social media app, had launched in India in 2012 but did not see the success it had in the Chinese market due to failure to localise. Now, WeChat’s payment solution will be launched as a new UPI app.
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UPI, or Unified Payments Interface, is a real time payment system developed by the National Payments Corporation of India to facilitate transactions between banks. In order to launch the new UPI app, Tencent has partnered with Axis Bank, HDFC and ICICI.
Tencent already has a presence in India through investments in prominent tech companies such as ride-hailing firm Ola and ecommerce site Flipkart, but in order to break into the payments market the Chinese company will still have competition from the likes of Google Pay and Paytm.