officials declined to comment, its report said. "The problems come when things are viewed politically, so the rest of the world will just think about customer data being sent to mainland China, and about privacy," Fong said.Īnt looks set to list on stock markets in Shanghai and Hong Kong in the coming weeks, in an international public offering (IPO) of around U.S.$35 billion, the report said.īloomberg cited a statement from Ant Group as saying that it was unaware of any such deliberations, and that its business is primarily in China anyway, while Tencent and U.S. They publish annual consumption reports that can be viewed online." "The data can include the colors that customers like, what they like to eat, stuff like that. "Visa and Mastercard will also take these records and analyze them," Fong said. market is pretty big."įong said electronic payments are generally linked to the acquisition of customer personal data, and that data acquisition isn't just a feature of Alipay and WeChat Pay. all of Alipay and WeChat Pay's competitors are based in the U.S., namely, Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay," he said. "Tencent may have said that only accounts for a small percentage of its overall business, but. "Right now Alipay and WeChat Pay are on an upward trajectory." "Alipay has already started operating in countries and regions outside China including Japan," he said. "They would have to prove national security risks before they could impose any restrictions on them."įrancis Fong, honorary chairman of Hong Kong's Information Technology Federation, agreed that Tencent and Ant are looking to expand the use of WeChat Pay and Alipay internationally. "But on the other hand, neither Tencent nor Ant have done anything illegal." "They are going to expand their digital services," he said. "It's a bit different if you are in a democracy."īut he said it would be hard to find legal justification for such restrictions, in the absence of any law-breaking by the companies concerned. " digital payment systems are real-names only," Tzeng said.
Tzeng Yi-suo, head of cyberwarfare and information security at the Institute for National Defence and Security Research on the democratic island of Taiwan, said there are concerns that the information sent to China would be people's real names and other details. Such platforms could soon be used internationally, potentially giving the Chinese government access to the banking and personal details of hundreds of millions of people, the agency reported. officials are concerned that Ant Group and other Chinese fintech platforms will come to dominate global digital payments, Bloomberg cited "people familiar with the matter" as saying. The Trump administration is considering imposing curbs on Ant Group, owned by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, and Tencent, amid concerns that their Alipay and WeChat Pay features could pose a security threat, Bloomberg reported this week.
The United States is looking at possible restrictions on two Chinese-owned digital payment platforms, amid national security concerns, according to recent media reports.
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