BEIJING: After Ant Group's Alipay launched a trial service allowing users of rival app WeChat to transfer funds using QR codes, the barrier separating China's two top mobile payment systems may have begun to weaken.

Although Beijing has called for the destruction of "walled gardens" run by China's big tech companies, direct money transfers between the two apps are still not possible.

However, Alipay's new service, which is currently only available to a small number of users in a trial, represents a small step toward bridging the two mutually exclusive payment services, which together serve as China Mobile Payments. accounted for more than 90% of the market.

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Alipay users create a QR code to complete the transaction after entering an amount of up to 2,000 yuan (US$278) per transfer. The WeChat user receives the code, which they must scan with Alipay in order to receive the money.

The transfer effectively uses WeChat, Tencent Holdings' super app with more than 1.2 billion monthly active users, for communication purposes, but does not use WeChat for payments.

Alibaba Group Holding's fintech subsidiary Ant declined to comment on the new service. The South China Morning Post is owned by Alibaba.

The service, which was quietly launched in September, comes as both payment apps are having difficulty keeping up with growth due to tighter regulations and a slowdown in the national economy.

Meanwhile, China is developing new digital payment options, such as the e-CNY digital currency issued by the country's central bank.

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The Chinese tech giant has long bolstered its ecosystem with barriers and barriers to access to competing services. Alibaba used to exclude WeChat Pay from its app and online marketplace.

Several external competitors, such as Alibaba and ByteDance, owner of short-form video app Douyin and TikTok, were also banned by Tencent from associating with WeChat.

However, a six-month campaign to resolve the issue was launched by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in July last year.

Since then, WeChat users can share links to competing apps while chatting face-to-face, a change seen as a response to Beijing's demands. WeChat Pay is also a payment option for many Alibaba services.

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That includes food delivery platform Alame, video-streaming platform Youku, online ticketing platform Damai and cross-border e-commerce platform Kaola.