The barrage of criticism taken by Tencent Holdings for its plan to charge fees on WeChat Pay transactions at Chinese universities illustrates the difficulty of raising more revenue from what has become a massive service used by 1.3 billion people, reports Nikkei Asia. Several colleges, including Northwest University, said in late June that they would stop allowing payments via the mobile platform on campus after being notified of changes to WeChat Pay’s fee structure by the Chinese internet giant.
Tencent, having exempted universities from transaction fees since 2015, had announced it would begin imposing a 0.6% rate on a wide range of purchases as of July 1, with only tuition payments staying free of fees.
After schools such as Zhengzhou University of Aeronautics urged students to stop using WeChat Pay to protect the institutions from losing money, Tencent faced a storm of online criticism that left it scrambling.
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