WeChat Pay, the mobile payment arm of the hugely popular WeChat messaging app, will be accepted in every shop in China within two years, the service’s GM Zhang Ying predicted.

Reuters reported the executive made the comment during an industry event held in Hong Kong this week.

WeChat Pay is one of the two most heavily used mobile payment systems in China, alongside Alipay, with over 650 million monthly active users. Both brands already have a significant retail acceptance footprint for their QR code-based mobile payment services.

Mobile payment is becoming increasingly popular in China with official figures estimating 68 per cent of the country’s mobile phone users made a transaction of some sort using their handset in 2016.

The figures recorded 469 million people used mobile payments in China during 2016, a year-on-year rise of 31 per cent.

Although the vast majority of its user base is in China, WeChat Pay signed deals with a number of major retailers in markets popular with Chinese tourists, increasing its acceptance footprint well beyond its home market.

The main WeChat app had an estimated user base of 890 million monthly users as of March 2016.