While Alipay holds a massive segment of the Chinese payment market, Tenpay is not far behind. It is the second-largest third-party payment provider in the country with 460 million users. Patrick Brusnahan, with help from Timetric’s research, looks into this firm and how it is managing to stand out and differentiate in this competitive market
Launched by Tencent, Tenpay was introduced to incorporate payments into Tencent’s QQ instant messenger. It supports e-commerce, P2P and online payments such as utility bills, charging of public transport cards, and money transfers. It can also be applied for in-store payments and cash withdrawals.
In 2011, it also started providing mobile payment services to Chinese WeChat customers.
Founded by Luke Liu, the service now has 460 million active users and created CNY26.6bn ($4.2bn) in revenue between Q1 and Q3 2015 alone. Tenpay accounted for 20% of the Chinese online payment market in 2015 and 15% of all online payments in China.
While mainly a payment service for Chinese shoppers, Tenpay also provides online and mobile payment services to overseas merchants in the US, the UK and some European countries. In 2015, Tenpay launched remittance services in the US and an in-store payments service in Hong Kong.
The other countries that Tenpay covers are Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Canada, Austria, Germany, and France.

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By GlobalDataTenpay allows customers to shop from international merchants using the WeChat app, deducts the bill from the buyer’s account in CNY and converts it to foreign currency in real time.
Chinese customers pay bills through WeChat while they are shopping abroad. This is done through a QR code generated via WeChat.
In addition, Tenpay offers an online checkout service for orders and bill payments. Tenpay’s Express Checkout enables consumers to check out orders quickly, with just a username and password. Payments are then made through a registered debit or credit card. It also enables customers to recharge accounts offline by sending employees to collect recharge amounts in person.
Escrow payment services enable Tenpay to hold bills paid by customers until they confirm that an order is received without any defects. The usual time needed to transfer money into a merchant account is three days.
Similarly, the Instant Payment service provides the same function, but charges 1% of the transactions amount to send the money instantly.
Once a Tenpay account reaches CNY500, funds are transferred to the merchant’s bank account on a weekly basis. In addition, direct debit services to overseas merchants are provided to airlines and travel companies in China.