Alibaba Group plans to launch an in-app function for bargain deals on Tencent’s WeChat messaging app, a news report said, in a rare sign of collaboration between two of the fiercest rivals in China’s internet sector and an apparent concession to regulators seeking to tighten their grip on the business.

Alibaba, founded by billionaire Jack Ma, was planning to open a Taobao Deals lite app on WeChat and had already invited some merchants to join, Bloomberg News reported.

The new service would mean that WeChat Pay would be accepted as a payment tool on Alibaba’s Taobao marketplace, which had long barred the rival to its own Alipay.

Representatives of Alibaba and Tencent declined to comment on the report, Bloomberg said.

A mainland reporter posing as a customer was told by Taobao customer services that the mini program for WeChat was still at the stage of internal trials, according to mainland Chinese news website jiemian.com. Further tests and fine-tuning were needed before the function launched officially, the report said.

The two technology giants in China have long excluded each other’s services from their platforms. Alibaba services have been blocked on WeChat since 2013 when Taobao shut down tools that could link WeChat users to the online shopping platform.

Talks of their latest collaboration come as Chinese state leaders have vowed to curb monopolistic practices by internet companies. Recently, there have been reports that Tencent could follow Alibaba, which was placed under an anti-monopoly probe by regulators last year, to become the next target of mainland authorities in their crackdown.

Alibaba and Tencent have been competing in many business areas, including shared bicycles, music streaming services, food delivery platforms and cloud services. Their founders have also talked about their feud openly over the years.

Alibaba’s Jack Ma once suggested that China’s internet businesses would lag behind if the country had no other messaging apps except WeChat.

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