Tencent will make Visa credit cards available for use using its WeChat app.
Foreign tourists visiting China will be able to pay with the WeChat app when it is launched next month, according to a press statement provided to PYMNTS from Royal Chen, vice president of Tencent Financial Technology, on Wednesday (June 28) at the World Economic Forum.
According to Reuters, linking international credit cards to the WeChat app will eliminate the problem that foreign visitors have had while trying to pay for goods and services in China.
According to the research, many shops and restaurants in the country now only take mobile payments, which have become the most popular payment option in China.
According to the research, only certain businesses were permitted to process foreign-issued credit cards.
According to the article, foreign visitors who wished to utilize Tencent’s mobile payment network had to get a Chinese bank account.
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 development comes only a week after Alipay and Mastercard launched a collaboration to provide a new payment option for international tourists to China.
The collaboration between the two companies enables overseas card transactions completed on the digital wallet of Alipay, Ant Financial’s third-party mobile and online payment platform, to be processed through Mastercard’s omnichannel payments platform, allowing small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to 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.”