Foreigners in China Can Soon Use Wechat Pay

Alipay and WeChat Pay have announced plans to open up their platforms to foreigners visiting the mainland.

This week, the two dominant payment apps in China announced that they will allow their platforms to be used by visitors to China, possibly boosting spending there.

Although Alipay and WeChat Pay’s logos are visible in stores and taxis in major cities around the world, it had previously been restricted to Chinese travelers with a China bank account. This is due to regulatory concerns about money laundering and cross-border cash flows.

Ant Financial’s Alipay laid out a system that will work around current restrictions and can be used immediately. Travelers can use a prepaid card service provided by the Bank of Shanghai, and just periodically top up that account.

In contrast, Tencent Holdings’ WeChat Pay intends to let people more directly connect their existing cards to its app. Visa said it will essentially enable its cards to work across the world’s second-largest economy.

Tencent, under guidelines from regulators, has been discussing cooperation with U.S. card-network operators Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover as well as Japan’s JCB to support the linking of overseas credit cards to Wechat Pay, according to an article from Tencent News.

This is a great step forward, both for consumers traveling to China and the overall payments industry. This partnership means that we’ll be working towards an environment where Visa cardholders will be able to use their Visa card in China at the millions of places where WeChat Pay is accepted, instead of having to rely on cash, Visa said in a statement. No time frame was provided for the rollout.

For overseas firms, the move has big implications, potentially helping pave the way for future adoption of both platforms abroad.