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ByteDance expands into China’s FinTech sceneINTL

ByteDance expands into China’s FinTech scene

China’s ByteDance (BDNCE) tangoed into the FinTech scene in the country by launching a new third-party payment service for Douyin, a short-video platform similar to its very own TikTok, called Douyin Pay. It will allow users to buy services, such as virtual gifts for fellow live streamers, and other items on the platform’s shop, such as merchandise.

Despite TikTok’s major global success (pew pew pew!), Douyin is actually ByteDance’s biggest source of income, having earned over 600 million daily active users.

The new payment service, Douyin Pay, follows stricter oversight from Chinese financial regulators, who are keeping an eye on Alipay and WeChat Pay as the two companies alone take up much of the third-party payment sector.

why it matters
ByteDance has been virtually at war with the Trump administration, which ordered it to divest all its assets in the US, on claims of national security fears, for months. And while they have been in talks with Walmart and Oracle to place those assets into a new entity, they also seem to have been (rather smartly) looking into other ways to bring in revenue.