Hong Leong Bank customers can start binding their debit card to WeChat wallet

KUCHING: Customers of Hong Leong Bank Berhad ( Hong Leong Bank) can start binding their debit cards to WeChat Wallet and use WeChat Pay as an alternative payment option, joining the giant mobile payment’s 900 million active monthly users worldwide.

HLB is also one of the first banks in Malaysia to be approved as Tencent’s local WeChat Pay Master Merchant Acquirer, enabling merchants and individual users to transact with WeChat Pay for the first time in Malaysia in ringgit, paving the way for Malaysia to be the first country, outside of China and Hong Kong, to be able to make payments in the local currency.

This development has been eagerly awaited by industry watchers and Malaysian consumers, following HLB’s collaboration with Tencent in November 2017 to provide WeChat Pay solutions for online and offline (O2O) digital payments from retail merchants in Malaysia with an easy-to-adopt, fully integrated cross-border payment solution, enabling Chinese tourists to pay using their WeChat accounts seamlessly when visiting Malaysia.

Domenic Fuda, group managing director and chief executive officer of HLB said, “When we took the step to become a merchant acquirer for WeChat Pay in Malaysia, we were not only looking to expand the payment ecosystem to enable our Malaysian merchants to cater to the Chinese tourists market.

“We were also gearing up our merchant acquisition strategy to prepare for the day when WeChat Pay is available in the local currency, so that our customers and WeChat users in Malaysia are able to use this payment option with a large number of merchants already signing up for the WeChat Pay facility.”

HLB Customers can already pay for their transactions in ringgit at WeChat’s own shops and platforms as well as third party services such as Garena, music from Joox and for local telco mobile prepaid top-ups.

The same goes for leading premium Apple Reseller Switch, which recently sold over 80 iPhones at the opening of HLB’s first digital branch in Penang earlier this month where all transactions were done through HLB Debit Card enabled WeChat Pay.

Soon, customers would also be able to pay for their shopping at the growing number of HLB WeChat Pay enabled merchants namely Giant, Resorts World Genting, MyNews and GSC, with more to come.

“We are thrilled that our customers will be amongst the firsts in Malaysia to access this highly popular Chinese electronic wallet and pay for their transactions seamlessly in ringgit, especially for products and services offered on WeChat platform. With a proven platform such as WeChat Pay, ready-to-activate users already on WeChat and the growing number of merchants signing up to WeChat Pay, we are confident that WeChat Pay will be received positively in Malaysia,” added Fuda.