![]() ![]() Scrutiny of TikTok is at a record high as the Biden administration seeks a deal addressing these homeland security issues and as bipartisan state attorneys general investigate the app’s alleged harms to minors. ![]() ByteDance spokesperson Jennifer Banks said only that its global payments team “is an internal function that supports our businesses’ needs” and that “this department works to ensure third parties, including partners and vendors, are compensated for their work.” In response to a detailed list of questions, TikTok directed Forbes to a blog post on how it protects Americans’ data. Morgan did not respond to a request for comment. … I don’t think Americans really appreciate the extent of it and the potential risks.” “Is this one activity itself terrible? No, probably not. “This is a step in assisting a major Chinese company, ByteDance, facilitate payments on a platform that does present national security risks,” he added. | Photo by GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images Morgan’s work with TikTok’s owner is “not a black-and-white ,” he said, “it’s steps along a gray continuum.” The headquarters of ByteDance, the parent company of video sharing app TikTok, is seen in Beijing. “The bigger picture of the potential threat posed by Chinese payment mechanisms… absolutely presents a genuine security concern for the United States,” Gerstell told Forbes. But he said helping ByteDance plant a flag in payments-a space where China is already building a stronghold with Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s Tenpay, used with WeChat-is a slippery, potentially dangerous slope. Morgan doing ByteDance’s “financial plumbing” is not, on its face, problematic. Both Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and FBI Director Christopher Wray late last year spoke out publicly about the national security concerns surrounding TikTok.įormer National Security Agency general counsel Glenn Gerstell said that J.P. But intelligence and business experts say ByteDance’s move into payments stands out because of the current geopolitical climate and widespread fears about TikTok’s handling of Americans’ data, given its ties to China. Neither company would say who has access to that sensitive data and what type of monitoring is occurring.īig American banks have long worked with Chinese companies. Morgan” so that ByteDance can “see and monitor payments,” the memo says. and Europe, now “covers approximately one-fifth of TikTok’s 1 billion active users worldwide.” The payment system also “allows real-time exchange of data between ByteDance and J.P. Morgan’s website that describes their work together, the bank has built “a real-time payments infrastructure” for ByteDance that now allows its users “to be paid instantaneously and directly into their bank accounts at any day or time,” an improvement on a previous, much slower e-wallets system. Neither company would comment on the partnership itself or when it began. Morgan executives for the global payments team leading its larger fintech expansion. Notably, ByteDance has also scooped up several J.P. Morgan to streamline these transactions, improve the way payments are sent and received and set up one centralized bank account for ByteDance’s more than a dozen products, including TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin. alone more than tripled-to $670 million-from the year before, according to data analytics firm Sensor Tower.īyteDance enlisted J.P. Users around the world spent $3.4 billion on TikTok in 2022, up from $2 billion the previous year, and spending in the U.S. TikTok is a sprawling marketplace: An enormous amount of money moves across the platform each day as people buy coins to send virtual gifts (like diamonds and roses) to their favorite creators and others they meet through the app, who can then convert those items into cash. The partnership is just one piece of ByteDance’s broader push into the fintech space. Morgan has been quietly working with TikTok parent ByteDance on payments technology that is helping the Chinese giant expand into more than two dozen markets and reach millions more users. Photo Illustration by Drew Angerer/Getty Images One of America’s most powerful banks is quietly building financial tools for ByteDance products like TikTok, expanding China’s grip on the high stakes payments space. ![]()
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