According to reports, recently Tencent internally released the "Notice on the Establishment of a Digital Currency Research Project Team (Virtual Organization) and the Designation of Relevant Persons in Charge" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"),A digital currency research project team will be established under the payment base platform and financial application line of the enterprise development business group.

The "Notice" mentioned that the purpose of this decision is to "Continue to promote the company's payment strategic layout to ensure the long-term healthy development of the payment businesssecondary title

Wechat payment is surrounded by powerful enemies

It can be seen from the "Notice" that Tencent established the project team first in response to the policy call. In August of this year, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued relevant opinions on supporting Shenzhen's construction, stating: "Support the development of innovative applications such as digital currency research and mobile payment in Shenzhen." As an Internet technology company rooted in Shenzhen, if Tencent wants to maintain its advantages in the mobile payment market, it must grasp this policy outlet.

In addition, the central bank's legal digital currency DC/EP has been piloted in Shenzhen. If the pilot work goes well, DC/EP will be gradually promoted nationwide.When the central bank's legal digital currency is about to come out, digital currency has also become a must for Internet financial services.

On the one hand, with the implementation of DC/EP, mobile payment software has ushered in new market opportunities. C-end users need a security tool that can store and use digital currency. Therefore, digital wallet and digital currency payment will become an important development direction of the payment industry.Carrying out digital currency research at this time is to prepare for supporting digital currency in mobile payment in the future.

On the other hand, unlike the current currency digitization, legal digital currency is a new form of currency, and new financial derivative services will inevitably follow. This is a huge impact and challenge for the existing financial Internet giants. They also need to focus on developing innovative financial derivative services in order to seize the opportunity in the upcoming digital currency market and continue to maintain their leading edge.

Respond to the competition and challenges from the domestic and foreign payment markets, and upgrade the payment businessIt is another important reason why Tencent established a digital currency research project team.

In the domestic payment market, Alibaba's Alipay has been competing with Tencent's WeChat Pay. Compared with Alipay, WeChat entered the mobile payment market later, butRelying on its social platform attributes and huge traffic, WeChat Pay, which is more convenient and quick to use, quickly occupied the market in offline payment scenarios.

However, with the help of Ali's own user traffic and cooperation with other e-commerce platforms, Alipay has gained an absolute advantage in online payment. And Alipay can carry out more payment business types than WeChat.

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The competition in the third-party payment market is fierce / Tuyuan Network

With the domestic payment market becoming saturated and the growth rate slowing down, Ali and Tencent have also set their sights on overseas markets.

However, from an international perspective, the news of Libra has made companies such as Tencent wait for it. The roadmap for the second version of Libra core has been released recently. Patrick Ellis, director of the Libra Association, said that Libra is planned to be launched in June next year.

In the "2019 Tencent Blockchain White Paper" (hereinafter referred to as the "White Paper") released in October this year, Libra was mentioned many times.

Tencent believes that the members of the Libra Association have brought rich usage scenarios and massive user resources. If Libra is successfully implemented, it will greatly affect the global payment industry and even the entire financial industry.In addition to the direct impact on traditional financial institutions, Internet companies with a relatively complete payment ecosystem will also be hit by dimensionality reduction.Affect its global strategic layout.

It can be seen that the establishment of a digital currency research project team is Tencent's measure to deal with domestic and foreign challenges. Research on digital currency can promote the innovation of mobile payment in terms of user experience and business model,secondary title

Tencent Deeply Cultivates Blockchain Payment

The digital currency research project team was established under the payment base platform and financial application line of Tencent's development business group, referred to as "FiT", which is a comprehensive platform under Tencent Group that provides users with Internet payment and financial services.

Judging from the platform website, the FiT application has four offline business lines, namely wealth management, payment, securities and innovative finance.Among them, the payment line is based on the two major applications of WeChat payment and QQ wallet, and Tenpay provides the underlying technical support for it.

WeChat Pay was launched in 2013. At that time, Alipay was the only third-party payment market, and the "New Year Red Packet" opened up a battlefield for WeChat Pay.WeChat red envelopes have the characteristics of easy diffusion, high frequency, entertainment, and gameplay. It has become a "social game" and opened up a new situation of social-oriented mobile payment.

Red envelopes have driven WeChat users to bind cards, and WeChat has developed more application scenarios. Especially in the field of offline micropayment, WeChat has promoted the QR code scanning payment function, and continues to give full play to the advantages of small amount and high frequency. The related payment operations brought about by the explosion of WeChat public accounts have also made more people have the habit of WeChat payment.

In 2013, when Tencent’s financial technology team was developing WeChat payment, it had already paid attention to the potential of blockchain technology, and found that blockchain and the mobile payment that WeChat is developing have similarities at the technical level.

Li Maocai, General Manager of Tencent Blockchain Technology, also confirmed in a recent interview:"Several core technologies of Bitcoin are used by WeChat Pay itself, such as encryption and distributed related technologies, which are very relevant. The immutability of the blockchain is very consistent with our needs."

In 2015, after the research and development of WeChat payment became more mature, the research and development personnel of Tencent mobile payment left to set up a blockchain team.In the field of payment, they took the lead in blockchain + electronic bills, and applied electronic bills to WeChat payment.

In May 2018, Tencent, in cooperation with the Shenzhen Taxation Bureau, announced that it will launch the country's first blockchain-based electronic invoice solution. In August of the same year, Shenzhen Guomao Revolving Restaurant issued the country's first blockchain electronic invoice.

In the application field of blockchain into mobile payment, following the launch of the blockchain electronic invoice function on the WeChat payment merchant platform in December 2018, in August this year, WeChat also launched the "Invoice Folder" application to help companies realize electronic invoices through the WeChat platform. One-click reimbursement.

In addition, blockchain electronic bills are also used in the field of smart transportation. The specific application of "payment + travel + blockchain" has launched Tencent's ride code blockchain electronic invoice function in Shenzhen.

Electronic invoices based on the underlying technology of Tencent's blockchain have been connected to payment platforms such as WeChat Pay and UnionPay.secondary title

Blockchain is reshaping the payment industry

Not only Internet finance and mobile payment, blockchain technology has created a broad imagination space for the entire payment industry, but it also brings regulatory challenges.

First of all, blockchain technology can help mobile payment solve security obstacles.The non-tamperable modification of blockchain technology can prevent fraud, repeated payment and other behaviors, and increase the transparency and security of payment transactions. Illegal transactions will also be easier to trace.

Additionally, blockchain technology can make mobile payment transactions more efficient and less costly. This is an opportunity worth grasping for third-party payment companies to improve users' transaction experience through the application of blockchain technology.

Most importantly, blockchain + payment can solve the pain points of cross-border payment efficiency and security.Cases of blockchain reshaping cross-border payments are happening around the world.

Ant Financial launched an e-wallet-based blockchain cross-border remittance service on AlipayHK last year. For high-risk international payments, the traditional cross-border remittance business is extremely slow due to the complicated approval process.

Ant Financial uses the characteristics of blockchain distributed ledgers to provide all participants with a unified business ledger, so that all parties involved can conduct approval simultaneously and in parallel, thus speeding up the cross-border remittance process.

In June this year, the US payment giant VISA launchedBased on blockchain technology, integrated hyperbookimage description

VISA launches B2B Connect cross-border remittance service / Tuyuan Network

In China, China Merchants Bank has also used blockchain technology to realize cross-border direct liquidation, and applied blockchain technology to the field of global cash management.

Although there have been some successful cases of blockchain technology in cross-border payments, an international and regional standard system has not yet formed in this field, and there are uncertainties in legal and regulatory policies.epilogue

In the rapidly changing new economic era, no company can always remain invincible. Therefore, it is particularly important to be keenly aware of development trends and embrace innovative technologies.

In the current international market, Libra challenges the global payment industry structure. In China, blockchain technology has risen to a national strategy, and DC/EP is about to come out. Under such circumstances, various companies that carry out payment services are working hard to study how to take the lead in accessing the digital currency ecosystem and explore new application scenarios of "blockchain + payment".

Blockchain technology is not a threat to the payment industry. Its technical characteristics such as immutability and traceability can just provide safe and efficient digital solutions for the payment industry.In 2020, when various countries are focusing on central bank digital currency and Internet giants are making efforts in the blockchain field, the payment industry may usher in an era of change.