Tencent CEO Pony Ma asks fintech unit to cede share in payments market to avoid challenging banks
- Tencent should modify its products so that the firm will be viewed as ‘a partner of banks’, Ma is quoted as saying in a staff meeting
- The founder has also warned staff to focus on ‘safety, not speed’ when venturing into new fintech services like loans and insurance
At a staff meeting on Monday, Ma reviewed Tencent’s business segments and said that the payment service was the only one that “was requested to” seek a smaller slice of the market, according to a report by Chinese media outlet Jiemian.
A person who attended that meeting and asked not to be named as the information is not public, confirmed the report with the Post.
Tencent did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
While Tencent’s WeChat Pay and Ant Group’s Alipay jointly account for over 90 per cent of China’s mobile payment market, Ma said half of the transactions conducted through WeChat were bank account transfers rather than payment services. He said Tencent should modify its products so that it would be viewed as “a partner of banks”.
“We are just a channel, a pathway, and we are not engaged in a rivalry [with banks],” Ma was quoted as saying by Jiemian.
