Tencent to Allow Visa Credit Cards to Be Linked to WeChat

Tencent will allow Visa credit cards to be linked to its WeChat app.

When this ability is rolled out next month, foreign tourists visiting China will be able to pay with the WeChat app, Royal Chen, vice president of Tencent Financial Technology, said Wednesday (June 28) at the World Economic Forum, according to a press release emailed to PYMNTS.

Linking international credit cards to the WeChat app will solve the challenge foreign visitors have faced when trying to pay for goods and services in China, Reuters reported Wednesday (June 28).

Many shops and restaurants in the country now accept only mobile payments — the payment method that has become most common in China, the report said.

In addition, only some businesses were allowed to process foreign-issued credit cards, per the report.

Foreign visitors who wanted to use Tencent’s mobile payment network had to set up a Chinese bank account, according to the report.

Chen said in the release: “Our efforts to further open payment services to visitors coincide with the full resumption of travel and tourism to China, as well as major upcoming international events in the country scheduled this year.”

This news comes a week after Alipay and Mastercard announced that they have teamed up to offer a new payment option for international visitors to China.

The two companies’ partnership allows overseas card transactions completed on the digital wallet of Alipay, the third-party mobile and online payment platform owned by Ant Financial, to be processed through Mastercard’s omnichannel payments platform, enabling small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to easily accept payments from anywhere in the world.

“The new service offered by Alipay and Mastercard will not only enable a better experience for international travelers when visiting China but will also unlock more business opportunities for merchants on the Alipay open platform as global travel is set for rapid growth,” Venetia Lee, general manager of Ant Group Greater China International Business, said when announcing the new offering June 21.

WeChat’s offering also comes at a time when the company is being challenged by TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, which is on a mission to become China’s next “everything app.”