Tencent to expand its payment business through a new crypto research unit

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Updated on Mar 11, 2020

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Chinese conglomerate, Tencent, is reportedly creating a cryptocurrency research unit to advance its payment business.
The news regarding the move comes from Chinese news media, although it remains unconfirmed by the company.
The most recent of these white papers talked about Facebook's Libra, and how it might have a serious impact on the current digital payment systems.

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According to recent reports, it appears that the Chinese tech giant, Tencent, recently decided to start researching digital currencies in a more serious fashion. To achieve this, the company is in the process of forming a new team that would be dedicated to researching cryptocurrency.

Chinese media also reported that Tencent recently issued an internal notice to its workers, stating that it is still looking for someone to fill in the position of the head of the crypto research team. Once formed, the team would become a part of the company’s payments arm, with a focus on developing its payment business further.

The new crypto unit will also help the firm with advancing its payment strategy layout and make sure that the payment business’s future development will remain healthy. The company will also support the government’s crypto plan in Shenzhen city, which is something that China’s central bank already revealed.

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So far, the company did not release any official statement regarding these reports, which leaves the claims about the new crypto unit officially unconfirmed. Another thing that remains unclear is how will studying cryptocurrencies allow Tencent to improve its payment business and make it grow.

Tencent came into contact with crypto and blockchain before

Meanwhile, the company is also the owner of a popular mobile messaging giant, WeChat, whose WeChat Pay is among the world’s largest payment processors. Currently, they have around 900 million active users per month, which is 400 million users more than Alibaba’s AliPay. In comparison, Apple Pay only has 125 million users on a global scale.

Of course, this is not the first time that Tencent is getting in contact with the crypto or blockchain tech. The company has issued as many as three white papers for blockchain since the crypto went big in 2017.

In addition, the company also got a license to launch a virtual bank and provide blockchain-based financial services.