Bank Disruptors Doubling Down On Mobile Payments In China

A pair of big technology firms has further consolidated its position in China's mobile payments market as the ongoing pandemic accelerates the consumer shift toward digital platforms.

Ant Group Co. Ltd., which plans to go public, and Tencent Holdings Ltd. continue to hold the lion's share of the mobile payments market in China, based on the 2020 edition of the Asia Consumer Insights survey from Kagan, which is part of S&P Global Market Intelligence. Each of their payment apps saw a 95% adoption rate among respondents. Besides having a customer base that frequently uses their apps for everyday transactions, the two wallets have become the payment rails supporting many e-commerce, ride-hailing and food-delivery platforms.

China UnionPay Co. Ltd., a banking association that runs the country's largest card scheme, had a lackluster performance in the 2020 survey. UnionPay's adoption rate dropped to 38% this year from 45% in 2019. Still, UnionPay's QuickPass app may yet be the strongest contender representing the banking industry. We added two more payment platforms to our survey this year: QQ Wallet (19%) and Du Xiaoman Pay, formerly known as Baidu Wallet (10%).