TikTok quietly develops money transfer feature via chat, pushing fully into fintech

Product / Tech
โดย Money & Banking·US·Read original
Summary · why it matters

TikTok is studying the development of a new feature that would let users send money directly to each other through private messages, using TikTok Pay, which is currently available only in Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam, as the system supporting transactions. Clues were discovered in code hidden in the iPhone version of TikTok in the United States, pointing to a peer-to-peer payment system where the recipient can tap to accept within a set time and the sender can attach a message along with the transfer, similar to PayPal's Venmo. A TikTok spokesperson said the feature has not yet entered testing in any market, but the fact that engineering work has already taken place reflects that parent company ByteDance is seriously considering expanding into the person-to-person money transfer market. Data from Sensor Tower shows that consumers worldwide have spent more than 2.9 billion dollars on TikTok since the start of this year, and TikTok has held the position of the world's highest-grossing app from in-app purchases since 2022.

Impact on stocks 1

Digital Finance & Tokenization · 1 stocks
PayPal Holdings Inc
PYPL
▼ NegativeCompetitionrelevance

TikTok's planned P2P payment feature would compete directly with PayPal's Venmo.

Theme Impact 1

Off-coverage companies 2

ByteDancePrivate▲ Positive
Demandrelevance

TikTok's expansion into money transfers could increase user engagement and in-app spending.

Sensor TowerPrivate± Mixed
relevance

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