Tencent offer WeChat Pay access to more international credit cards

Governed and guided by the relevant policies, Tencent is now collaborating with Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover Global Network (including Diners Club) and JCB to enable overseas users to link their credit cards to WeChat Pay and use it for payment transactions and services in China. With this collaboration, overseas users will now be able to use WeChat Pay across multiple payment scenarios spanning shopping, restaurants, transportation and accommodation. For instance, overseas users can use WeChat Pay to purchase railway ticket on China Railway 12306, hail for a ride via Didi, make online purchases via JD.com and Ctrip, and more. Tencent intends to facilitate more payment scenarios by stages in the future, under the guidance of the relevant regulatory bodies and policies. 

In recent years, more and more overseas visitors are travelling to mainland China and some have chosen to stay and work here. According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the number of inbound tourists reached 141.2 million in 2018, an increase of 1.2% over the same period of the previous year. Furthermore, according to the Minister of Science and Technology, China is also attracting talents from around the globe to start innovative new businesses. Currently, there are more than 950,000 foreigners working in China, and the country has cumulatively issued 336,000 overseas talent work permits in 2018. 

However, the inconvenience of not being able to use the widely adopted local mobile payments is becoming a major pain point for overseas people living or visiting mainland China. The Chinese government has introduced a variety of policies to bring convenience to their daily lives, something which WeChat Pay is committed to helping achieve through quality of life enhancing innovation. 

WeChat Pay is already supporting overseas users with mainland bank cards, savings cards and credit cards from up to 128 available banks registered with their passports. Users simply enter their bank card number, name, ID number and the mobile phone number for binding their bank cards in a few easy steps to enjoy the convenience of WeChat Pay. 

As a next step and given that overseas visitors tend to use more international credit cards, Tencent is cooperating with Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover Global Network (including Diners Club) and JCB to support the binding of international credit cards with WeChat Pay under the guidance of the People's Bank of China. 

Tencent intends to continue exploring further innovative collaboration with all industry parties under the guidance of the relevant regulatory authorities to provide more convenience for overseas users both traveling and living in mainland China.