Chinese payment giants revive effort to accept foreign credit cards
$TENCENT (00700.HK)$and$BABA-W (09988.HK)$Ant Group said that they would allow users to link international credit cards to their platforms,an issue that has long plagued foreign visitors as the country’s payment system has kept credit cards out for years.
Tencent, operator of the popular chat app WeChat and payment network WeChat Pay, said on Wednesday (Jun 28) that WeChat users overseas can link credit cards issued by Visa to their WeChat app fromnext month. Foreign tourists can then pay with WeChat when travelling in mainland China.
This comes after$MasterCard (MA.US)$announced last week thatcardholders can link credit or debit cards to the Alipay digital wallet where they can finally “pay like a local”.Alipay is the mobile payment app owned by Ant.
“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,”Tencent said in a statement on Wednesday.
圣手点股 : This will be good news for Ant Financial