Asia Tech Wire (Aug 2) -- Apple is stepping up pressure on Tencent and ByteDance to close loopholes used by developers within their apps to direct users to external payment systems, according to Bloomberg.

The loopholes circumvents the 30% commission that Apple typically charges.

The report, citing sources, said that Apple warned Tencent in May that it could reject essential updates to WeChat unless it removed links used by mini-game developers to accept payments outside of Apple's platform.

A few months later, Apple asked Tencent to disable a key in-game messaging feature that also steers users away from Apple's platform.

Tencent has yet to agree to the request, the report said.

Another source said Apple told ByteDance in June that it would not accept new updates for Douyin, TikTok's sister app in China, unless it also plugged similar payment loopholes.