KUALA LUMPUR: Hong Leong Bank Bhd has received the approval of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to enter into an agreement with Tenpay Payment Technology Co Ltd, a subsidiary of Chinese Internet giant Tencent Holdings, to provide payment services via WeChat Pay.

This collaboration will allow Chinese tourists to continue using their WeChat accounts when visiting Malaysia.

“This offering marks the start of business collaborations with the Chinese technology giant and more digital payment solutions in the near future,” the bank said in a statement on Thursday.

The partnership between the bank and Tencent using WeChat Pay enables online and offline (O2O) digital payments from retail merchants in Malaysia with an easy-to-adopt, fully integrated cross-border payment solution.

With a simple user interface, users benefit from this quick, mobile app based, QR code payment tool to make purchases in Malaysia in yuan and other currencies, it said.

Launched in 2011, WeChat Pay provides fast and reliable payment services to its users and has rapidly become one of the most popular mobile payment services in China.  As a merchant acquirer for WeChat Pay in Malaysia, Hong Leong Bank can now enable Malaysian businesses to start accepting WeChat payments for both online and in-store payments.

This is the bank’s first foray as an acquirer of the very popular Chinese wallet-based payment methodology, riding on WeChat Pay technology which has over 600 million monthly active users in China, it said. - Bernama