Travelling to China soon, and worried about how you’re going to be paying for stuff? Well worry no more because WeChat Pay will soon be available for overseas users. 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.

You’ll be able to use WeChat Pay to buy a railway ticket on China Railway 12306, or hail a ride via Didi, and other transactions in the mainland.

Tencent intends to facilitate more payment scenarios by stages in the future, under the guidance of the relevant regulatory bodies and policies.

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.

There are also 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.

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 enter their bank card number, name, ID number and the mobile phone number for binding their bank cards and you’ll be able to use WeChat pay. But that doesn’t really apply for tourists does it? And that’s pretty much their rationale for the new implementation.