This article references American Express’s WeChat official account post, Working Together to Support Industry Development

One-Sentence Summary

  • Partner banks in mainland China will, in the future, issue AMEX single-currency credit cards that can be used for RMB transactions domestically (previously, AMEX cards could only be used overseas).
  • These cards can be linked to WeChat Pay for transactions (this is already possible now, but only in limited categories), used with Alipay (currently only Taobao supports this), and used with Cloud QuickPass (which previously only supported UnionPay cards).
  • Overseas AMEX credit cards will also eventually be accepted at POS terminals in mainland China and through the third-party payment platforms mentioned above. Given the high processing fees on foreign-issued AMEX cards, though, this will probably take quite a while.

First Batch of Partners

AMEX and LianTong plan to officially begin operations within this year. The first group of partner banks, mobile wallet operators, and third-party acquirers is as follows:

Banks (card issuance and merchant acquiring partners)

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China; Agricultural Bank of China; Bank of China; China Construction Bank; Bank of Communications; China Merchants Bank; China CITIC Bank; China Everbright Bank; SPD Bank; China Minsheng Bank; Hua Xia Bank; Ping An Bank; Industrial Bank; China Guangfa Bank; Bank of Hangzhou; Bank of Ningbo

Mobile Wallet Operators (linked-card transactions)

  • Cloud QuickPass
  • Tencent Financial Technology
  • Alipay

Third-Party Acquirers (merchant acquiring)

  • Lakala Pay
  • Allinpay
  • Fuyou Pay
  • Yinsheng Pay
  • 99Bill
  • Guotong Xingyi

That list is pretty interesting — those who know, know.

Hopefully U.S.-issued AMEX credit cards will be accepted soon!