WeChat Pay was granted access to Indonesia's financial market after Bank Indonesia allowed the use of QR code payments in 2019. The Chinese company then received regulatory approval to operate in the country after it engaged in a partnership with CIMB Niaga to establish its financial platform in the country.
Last January, Bank Indonesia gave the green light for WeChat Pay to operate within Indonesia's financial market. It granted regulatory approval to the Chinese firm who partnered with CIMB Niaga as its acquirer. The latter Indonesian company would process the transactions engaged by customers using the WeChat Pay service.
Before the grant of the license to operate in Indonesia, WeChat Pay had already been offering its services to Chinese tourists who visit the country. However, the report claimed that Indonesian laws compelled WeChat to partner with local banks as compliance to the Indonesia National payment QR Code.
According to the deputy governor of Bank Indonesia Sugeng, WeChat Pay's approval was first revised before it was approved as the central bank wanted the company to make corrections to its application. It was reported that the application lacked the necessary documents to push through with an approval.
At present, the Chinese fintech company could already serve Chinese tourists in India without being reprimanded by the provincial government of Indonesia when transacting online mobile payments. However, WeChat Pay is still regarded as a foreign payment service provider in the country who merely secured a regulation approval with transactions engaged by Chinese users in Indonesia.
AliPay, a digital platform of Ant Financial which is a financial affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has also treated the regulatory approval for WeChat Pay as a business opportunity. It was previously reported that AliPay had been wanting to gain access to Indonesia's financial market since the country was declared as a rising digital economy and after it embraced a digital payments sector.
The report also claimed that Facebook's messaging service WhatsApp had also been seeking the same approval in Indonesia. It was revealed that the company has been in talks with Bank Mandiri, a local financial institution in Indonesia, to engage in a partnership. The said partnership was said to also involve multiple Indonesian digital payments firms that would allow WhatsApp to offer mobile transaction services.
On top of WhatsApp, the report also claimed that companies such as Go-Jek, DANA, and OVO have set their eyes on entering the Indonesian financial market as well. These three companies were said to be China's leading mobile payment platforms.
