China’s New Payment Standards Could Shake Duopoly of Alipay and WeChat Pay, Industry Insiders Say

China’s new technical standards for unifying digital payment barcodes have laid the groundwork for tearing down the walls between different payment platforms, but to what extent interoperability can be achieved will depend on how forcefully regulators enforce these nonmandatory provisions, industry insiders told Caixin.

If strictly implemented, the standards are expected to have a significant impact on the booming multitrillion-dollar mobile payment market, shaking the duopoly of Ant Group Co. Ltd.’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat Pay.