Chinese Wechat Pay Approved Taking Visa And Mastercard

After allowing users to link international credit cards, the massively popular mobile payment networks Alipay and WeChat Pay are now available to visitors to China.

Now, foreign tourists can use Visa, Mastercard, and JCB cards with WeChat Pay to make purchases totaling up to 6000 yuan ($800) or more.

Visa, Mastercard, JCB, Diners Club, and Discover cards are now accepted by Alipay. For transactions over a particular threshold, both platforms impose a 3% fee.

WeChat Pay required a locally-issued credit card, while Alipay only accepted international cards if the user signed up for a program with a 5% enrollment fee, even though the apps started making attempts to open up to international users in 2019. These restrictions were lifted last week.

According to Nikkei Asia, the use of cash has drastically decreased in China as a result of the popularity of Alipay and WeChat Pay, and many businesses no longer provide change.

Tencent, who owns Alipay, claims that the most recent action will benefit from an anticipated increase in visitors for athletic events like the Asian Games and the FISU World University Games.