Users pissed as WeChat starts charging for money transfers

Tencent’s WeChat is undeniably the social network in China right now. But it’s a lot more than that – it’s a platform for everything from games to food delivery. And all of that business revolves around Tencent’s mobile payment system, which millions upon millions of people use each month.

Up to now, that service has been free of fees. Want to buy something on WeChat, or transfer money to another user? You were free to do so without Tencent taking a cut. But those idyllic days may have drawn to a close. Tencent is introducing fees to WeChat payments as a way of compensating for the fees it has to pay to banks every time users move their money around.

Widely-cited reports say that as of Thursday, WeChat has changed to a 0.1 percent fee for all spending via the app and for money transfers above RMB 20,000 (US$3,150) per month. Smaller transfers, and Spring Festival red envelope gifts, will not be affected by the new fees.

All things considered, WeChat’s apparent new fee is quite small. But users used to having no fees whatsoever definitely aren’t happy about the change. An online poll at Sina Tech with more than 2,000 respondents found that more than 80 percent opposed the move, saying they would stop using WeChat payments. Just over 7 percent felt the fees should be levied.

Perhaps more telling than those numbers is the top comment on the poll, which comes from a Zhengzhou-based user:

Alipay controls more than 70 percent of the [payments] market, and WeChat only controls more than 10 percent. I really don’t know where [Tencent CEO] Pony Ma’s confidence is coming from.

It’s a valid point – although WeChat dominates the social space, Alipay is still the epayment method of choice for most Chinese net users. And although WeChat’s new fees are incredibly minimal, they could still push users over to Alipay. Alipay does charge a fee of 0.2 percent for desktop-based money transfers, but for the moment all of its mobile transfers are completely free.