ByteDance Sets Up Mobile Payments For Short-Video App Douyin

ByteDance has launched a mobile payments service for Douyin, the Chinese version of the popular short-video app TikTok, Reuters reported on Tuesday (Jan. 19).

The Beijing company is looking to expand its eCommerce business and take on China’s big payments platforms — Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings’ WeChat Pay. Now, Douyin users can use the company’s new Douyin Pay platform instead.

“The setup of Douyin Pay is to supplement the existing major payment options, and to ultimately enhance user experience on Douyin,” the video app provider told Reuters. The new mobile payments platform can be used to buy virtual gifts for live streamers or items from online shops.

Douyin now has 600 million daily active users. ByteDance moved in the direction of offering a mobile payments platform when it acquired Wuhan Hezhong Yibao Technology Co last year. The latter had gotten a third-party payments license from the central bank in 2014.

ByteDance hit the news in the United States when the outgoing Trump administration demanded that the company divest TikTok’s U.S. assets on the grounds of national security. With an eye toward compliance, ByteDance has been in talks with Walmart and Oracle Corp. for months over the sale of its U.S. assets. The Chinese company has denied there are security issues with TikTok.

Per the Reuters report, Douyin is the main source of revenue for ByteDance. Douyin started selling merchandise in 2017 and now operates a growing eCommerce operation.

Meanwhile, regulators in China are increasing oversight of FinTech companies, and recently derailed Ant Group’s plans to go public.

Douyin is eyeing the public markets as well. This fall, Reuters reported that ByteDance was having both internal deliberations and discussions with investment bankers about taking the firm public.

As ByteDance looks at an initial public offering (IPO), Douyin might not be the only part of the company in the mix. It could also include other parts of the company’s business empire: news aggregator Jinri Toutiao, work collaboration tool Feishu, and video-streaming app Xigua