Wirecard Opens European POS to Chinese Travelers with Tencent Deal
Wirecard and Tencent are working together to give European retailers access to more than 938 million active WeChat and Weixin users by enabling QR code payments at the POS.
The mobile payment solution, WeChat Pay, has more than 600 million active users, which is equivalent to nearly 40 percent of the Chinese mobile payment market.
The average spending per Chinese tourist in Europe is €3,000 (US$3,416) and mobile payments are a preferred payment method, according to Wirecard. The partnership means that European retailers will be able to accept the popular mobile payment method, through a QR code scan at the POS. During the payment process, Wirecard serves as the acquiring bank and bundles all transactions for the respective retailer and processes them together via the collecting model.
Wirecard’s ConnectedPOS platform enables POS integration with “minimal intervention at the existing cash register,” according to Jörn Leogrande, executive vice president of mobile services at Wirecard. The companies will extend the capability to e-commerce to “in the near future.”
This is not the first time Wirecard has partnered with a Chinese company to enable POS payments in Europe. In 2015, the Munich-based company announced a similar partnership with Tencent rival Alipay.
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