Mobile payments: the WeChat Pay cooperation with the Japanese LINE Pay

The goal of the partnership is to support the use of WeChat Pay for Chinese tourists who visit Japan and at the same time provide LINE Pay to local users in Japan

Tokyo and Beijing are getting closer. Nowadays, Beijing and Chinese customers are extremely important for Japanese companies. Chinese love “made in Japan” products: Japanese cosmetics and Tokyo fashion are a real trend in China. As a result, Chinese tourism in the Land of the Risen Sun is growing so that many shops in Tokyo, Osaka or Kyoto started to use Alipay and WeChat Pay to please Chinese customers.

Thus, WeChat Pay and LINE Pay agreement had not surprised experts. Bilateral trade and investment have kept China and Japan closely integrated in recent years. Moreover, China and Japan are pursuing greater cooperation on a number of fronts, from economic development to international trade and currency internationalization. Now fintech too.

According to WeChat Global, on September 11th, WeChat Pay and LINE Pay have decided to further deepen their cooperation in the field of mobile payments. To this end, WeChat Pay will be integrated with LINE Pay merchants in Japan. Thanks to this cooperation, WeChat Pay users will be able to scan a QR code of the LINE Pay merchant to pay with their WeChat Pay.

According to the company, LINE Pay now has about 32 million registered users in Japan

LINE Pay offers easy payment services in partnership with global credit card brands and cooperation with WeChat Pay dates back to November 27, when the two companies decided to hold a press conference in Tokyo, Japan, announcing that the two sides would cooperate to promote mobile payments in Japan.

LINE Corporation was founded on September 4, 2000, as a Hangame Japan as a part of Hangame, a South Korean game company owned by NHN at the time. LINE Pay is its payment service released in December 2014, which allows users to pay through the app in affiliated online stores and after registering their credit cards.

WeChat Pay’s cross-border payment service has now reached 49 countries and regions outside of mainland China in accordance with local regulations

As already happened with other Chinese brands, such as Alipay, for foreign operators to allow the use of payments with Chinese software is a great way to increase tourism and sales. Furthermore, with the development of the Chinese economy and the increase in outbound travel, WeChat Pay has become one of the main objectives to increase its market share outside of China.

To add, that the number of Chinese tourists visiting Japan continues to grow and the service will make it even more convenient for Chinese tourists visiting Japan. According to data from the Japanese tourist agency, in 2018 8.38 million Chinese tourists visited Japan, making it the largest group of international tourists in the country.