Online payment processing provider, Allied Wallet, has added WeChat Pay as a payment option to their platform, a news release said. .

In the estimated $16 trillion Chinese mobile payments market, WeChat has over one billion users and its payment function, WeChat Pay, has over 900 million active users every month. The closest competitor, Alibaba, has 500 million active users, while globally, the option of Apple Pay has just 127 million users globally although it is pre-installed on every iPhone.

With WeChat Pay, account holders can now load their Allied Wallet digital eWallet account with money from their WeChat Pay account. This enables them a safe means for shopping online, in stores, and sending money to friends and family.

"We're very happy (to) announce our compatibility with WeChat. It's one of the world's largest apps used by over a billion people... Forbes even described it as one of the world's most powerful apps," Allied Wallet CEO Andy Khawaja said in the release.

At this year's annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting, Vice Chairman Charlie Munger called WeChat a main competitor of Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, with significant expansion underway now in the U.S., according to the release. 

WeChat pay is already accepted at many U.S. duty-free shops and popular Chinese tourist destinations. With the average Chinese tourist typically spending nearly $4,500 while vacationing in the U.S. that represents significant activity. But, WeChat executives say the expansion has only just begun.

As WeChat Pay continues to expand, these users will find even more freedom and access to their money with this new integration into Allied Wallet's digital eWallet solution.

"The payment landscape is evolving and it's changing the world," Khawaja said. "The main card brands clearly aren't the only preferred payment methods when nearly a billion users have now switched to WeChat Pay and countless other users are using new alternative payment options all over the world."

Allied Wallet has integrated numerous alternative payment options into its services allowing more than 900 million monthly WeChat Pay users to load and spend with an Allied Wallet digital eWallet, while giving them a new way to shop securely.