Research on Price War of Payment Platform based on Repeated Game-Taking Alipay and Wechat as Examples

Abstract

Price war is an inevitable product of the market economy and is an important mean of stimulating market development. The development of the Internet financial market has brought about a new era of universal mobile payments. The price war between the two mobile payment giants - Alipay and WeChat - in this new era is of particular concern. As the battle between the two platforms gradually enters a white-hot stage, how they act to maximize their own interests has become a major focus of the Internet financial market. This paper explores the price war between these two payment platforms from the perspective of repeated games and makes preliminary assumptions based on the Bertrand model. Based on the findings and the context of the times, this paper suggests strategies for the development of both Alipay and WeChat which are aiming to promote the mobile payment platforms towards healthy competition in order to achieve a mutually beneficial and win-win market.