Aug 16, 2018
Digital payment firms fight for Hong Kong market
Excerpt
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong’s shopping districts are well known for their fierce competition. Now, a new battleground is forming as digital payments firms fight for retailers and shoppers.
Chinese tech giants like Tencent and Alibaba are bringing their payment platforms to a city that has long thrived on cash and credit cards, putting them into competition with the likes of Google, Apple and Samsung, as well as local players like HSBC.
“Hong Kong is probably a little behind other places when it comes to digital payments, so we are seeing a rush to establish a first mover advantage,” said Fergus Gordon, who leads Accenture’s Asia-Pacific banking practice.
The city has become an important testing ground for Tencent’s WeChat Pay, and Alibaba’s Alipay, dominant rivals in mainland China, as they look to establish themselves overseas.
AlipayHK, a joint venture between Ant Financial , Alibaba’s payments arm, and the Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison, says the number of its users have jumped 50 percent to 1.5 million since March.
WeChat Pay does not disclose its user numbers in Hong Kong.
Visa says that as of last April, one in 10 Visa payments in Hong Kong were made using ApplePay, SamsungPay or GooglePay, doubling from a year earlier. HSBC said in July that it reached one million users for its peer-to-peer payments app PayMe.
Hong Kong has been slow to embrace mobile payments partly because of the ubiquity of Octopus, a once ground-breaking stored-value card that is accepted by 22,000 businesses like convenience stores and small restaurants, and is widely used on public transport.
Despite the growth of mobile payments, current spending habits will be hard to change.
A device to accept digital payment is installed at a convenience store in Hong Kong, China July 30, 2018. REUTERS/Bobby Yip
A Hong Kong Productivity Council survey published in July found that the most widely used mobile payment methods were Alipay and WeChat Pay, but they were used by just 22 percent and 19 percent of respondents respectively.
Digital payment firms fight for Hong Kong market
Excerpt
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong’s shopping districts are well known for their fierce competition. Now, a new battleground is forming as digital payments firms fight for retailers and shoppers.
Chinese tech giants like Tencent and Alibaba are bringing their payment platforms to a city that has long thrived on cash and credit cards, putting them into competition with the likes of Google, Apple and Samsung, as well as local players like HSBC.
“Hong Kong is probably a little behind other places when it comes to digital payments, so we are seeing a rush to establish a first mover advantage,” said Fergus Gordon, who leads Accenture’s Asia-Pacific banking practice.
The city has become an important testing ground for Tencent’s WeChat Pay, and Alibaba’s Alipay, dominant rivals in mainland China, as they look to establish themselves overseas.
AlipayHK, a joint venture between Ant Financial , Alibaba’s payments arm, and the Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison, says the number of its users have jumped 50 percent to 1.5 million since March.
WeChat Pay does not disclose its user numbers in Hong Kong.
Visa says that as of last April, one in 10 Visa payments in Hong Kong were made using ApplePay, SamsungPay or GooglePay, doubling from a year earlier. HSBC said in July that it reached one million users for its peer-to-peer payments app PayMe.
Hong Kong has been slow to embrace mobile payments partly because of the ubiquity of Octopus, a once ground-breaking stored-value card that is accepted by 22,000 businesses like convenience stores and small restaurants, and is widely used on public transport.
Despite the growth of mobile payments, current spending habits will be hard to change.
A device to accept digital payment is installed at a convenience store in Hong Kong, China July 30, 2018. REUTERS/Bobby Yip
A Hong Kong Productivity Council survey published in July found that the most widely used mobile payment methods were Alipay and WeChat Pay, but they were used by just 22 percent and 19 percent of respondents respectively.