Owned by Tencent, WeBank was China's first digital bank and services 340 million customers.

Listen to an interview with Tencent's chief financial officer Arthur Wang to hear how the company is leveraging to AI to stay ahead of the technological curve.

China is making a deliberate push towards becoming a cashless society, making digital payment services like Tencent's WeBank even more valuable.

Read a breakdown of WeChat, the central technology in Tencent's empire that boasts roughly 1.4 billion users and hosts e-commerce, payment, and messaging services all in one place.

Watch a timeline of Tencent—one of China's earliest tech giants—despite the company's low profile.

Read an overview of Tencent's biggest business moments, from the 2011 WeChat launch to streaming deal with Universal Music Group.

See a breakdown of Tencent's revenue streams, which include fintech, advertising, games, and social.

Creating a digital alternative to the traditional Chinese 'red envelope' payments helped spur WeChat's financial services growth, and helped it become a 'superapp.'

In 2018, Tencent's market capitalization hit $580B, surpassing Facebook (now Meta) for the first time.

Tencent has relatively low name recognition outside of China—despite being the world's biggest video game publisher—operating a 1.4-billion-user messaging network, and holding more than 80 companies with valuations exceeding $1B.

Fintech could help democratize access to banking

More than 1.3 billion adults worldwide do not have access to basic banking services as of this writing—but some experts believe that the fintech industry can help with that by targeting groups of people who have historically been underserved by traditional banks.

What's the difference between QQ, WeChat, and Weixin?

Tencent owns QQ, Weixin, and WeChat—three separate apps serving different users. QQ launched in 1999 as a youth-focused messenger. Weixin (for China) and WeChat (international) are technically the same app, but split to comply with regional regulations, especially around data and payments.

Watch a tour of Tencent's sprawling headquarters, focused on tech and health, located in China.

Worldcoin: the cryptocurrency collecting biometric data

An ambitious project launched by OpenAI's founder Sam Altman, Worldcoin aims to provide a global financial and identity network based on proof of personhood through biometric scanning of individuals' irises.

Apple Pay is activated on more than 78% of US iPhones

As a result, some banks worry they could be losing ground to the tech company. As consumers continue to use Apple Pay instead of pulling out their physical debit card to pay for everyday items, some banks are fighting back in the digital wallet war.

WeChat has become China's primary news platform, due to expansive user base and legacy media's adoption of the platform.

Peter Thiel and Elon Musk formed PayPal after merging two dot-com companies

Elon Musk cofounded "X.com," an online banking service, in 1999 with the idea that the web would become a financial repository as internet access expanded and became ingrained in daily life. Peter Thiel cofounded "Confinity" as a digital security service that morphed into a payments system. In 2000, the two merged to form PayPal, and in 2002, they sold PayPal to eBay for $1.5B.

SoftBank acquired a majority stake in WeWork in October 2019

SoftBank is widely considered the biggest victim in the WeWork story, losing billions of dollars that it invested in the company while WeWork’s CEO walked away a billionaire himself.

Explore a visual timeline of fintech’s history and growth

From the debut of the world’s first ATM in 1967, to Apple Pay launching in 2014, financial technologies have come a very long way in a relatively short historical period. A colorful visual timeline highlights some of the most important milestones along the way.

Fintech relies on technology, not physical location, to serve financial customers

Most of the industry's prominent players were created since 2010, and are still in a growth phase. These institutions have broadly disrupted traditional banking and have pushed physical banking locations toward obsolescence.

The main bank serving Silicon Valley startups and venture capitalists collapsed in 2023

Silicon Valley Bank—the 16th largest bank in the US—served many tech startups in the area as well as many venture capitalists. The bank collapsed in 2023—in a single day, bankers took out $42B.

See a breakdown of every single video game Tencent has invested in.

The payments tool Zelle was created by big banks to compete with apps like Venmo

Zelle is an alternative to Venmo, where people can pay each other back for expenses like apartment utilities or dinner. But its origin story has more to do with big finance than small transactions.

Critics say WeChat is a surveillance tool for the Chinese government.