TikTok is a Chinese application owned by ByteDance that curiously receives that name outside the country. In China, ByteDance has Douyin , which is the same social network as TikTok, but for the local market.
It is one of the most used apps in China and it has just launched "Douyin Pay" , a series of functionalities that allows you to manage micropayments between users, who can send money through Douyin in the same way that they can do it in the country via WeChat Pay or Alipay (owned by Alibaba).
Douyin's movement is interesting and opens the door to making purchases also directly within the application. Users can be redirected to a link to buy a product, sending the money to that other user, for example an influencer, while they are watching your video. In order to introduce this new functionality, ByteDance bought last September a payment solutions provider called Wuhan Hezhong Yibao, whose technology has been integrated into the app.
What Douyin is launching now is similar to what WhatsApp is trying to create, which has already launched WhatsApp Pay in India after years of problems with the country's financial institutions to obtain approval for its launch. In Brazil it also tried it last year , but the Brazilian Central Bank withdrew the permits days after WhatsApp Pay was launched in the country.
In China it must be taken into account that Douyin -ByteDance- has the approval of the strong government authorities. No Western company could launch such a service in the country, where Internet control is absolute.
In the same way, it would not be easy for its version “for the outside”, TikTok, to launch a similar tool in other countries. The idea of a "TikTok Pay" would certainly appeal to the company, but it would be very difficult to get approval for launch in other countries.