If you have a PayPal account, you can now directly pay some WeChat Pay merchants. The process is very simple: open the PayPal App and scan the merchant’s WeChat Pay QR code to complete the payment.

But first, the bottom line: it’s convenient, but I don’t recommend it for most users. In my testing, the exchange rate was more than 3% worse than the market rate, and if you add credit card currency conversion costs, the actual loss could be even higher.

How PayPal Pays WeChat Merchants

According to Tencent’s official announcement, PayPal now supports users paying WeChat Pay merchants through the PayPal App.

Official information:

The actual process is very simple:

  • Open the PayPal App
  • Tap the scan function
  • Scan the WeChat Pay merchant QR code
  • Confirm the amount
  • Complete the payment

The whole process is similar to paying by scanning with Alipay or WeChat, and it is indeed much more convenient for people who do not have a Chinese bank card. Many merchants that previously only accepted WeChat Pay can now, at least in theory, be paid through PayPal.

The Biggest Problem: The Exchange Rate Is Terrible

After the feature launched, I did a real-world test. The result was not ideal: compared with the live market exchange rate, the RMB conversion rate offered by PayPal was more than 3% worse.

In other words:

  • If you spend ¥1,000
  • You could end up paying more than $4 extra just because of the exchange rate
  • The larger the amount, the more obvious the loss

And that does not even include credit card foreign currency conversion costs and any extra fees charged by some card issuers, so the actual cost may be even higher than it looks.

Conclusion

PayPal’s support for scanning WeChat Pay merchant QR codes does solve payment problems for some overseas users spending in China.

Based on my actual experience, the biggest issue is not the feature itself, but the poor exchange rate. Unless you have no other payment option, I would not recommend using PayPal to pay WeChat merchants. If you use WeChat or Alipay with a foreign card, the fee is only up to 3%, which is much more cost-effective than PayPal.