As we all know, since 2018, WeChat Pay has broadly accepted Visa, Master, AMEX, and Discover credit cards for online payments within WeChat’s “nine-grid” mini-program merchants, mobile top-ups, purchasing 12306 train tickets, and at one point even utility bill payments, all without any additional fee.
Today, “Visa China” published a short article: Visa Update | Visa and Tencent partner to provide WeChat Pay services for international Visa cardholders!
Xu Shirley, President of Visa Greater China, said:“We are very pleased and excited to partner with Tencent to enable overseas cardholders to use WeChat Pay while traveling in mainland China.
Visa believes this is not only good news for consumers traveling to mainland China, but also an exciting development for the entire payments industry. In a globalized commercial environment, only through collaboration can we deliver a seamless payment experience for consumers.
Visa is very pleased to work with an innovative and leading local fintech company like Tencent to provide international visitors to mainland China with a secure, convenient, and interoperable mobile payment experience.
Our collaboration means that overseas Visa cardholders in mainland China will be able to use their Visa cards at thousands upon thousands of merchants that accept WeChat Pay, rather than relying on cash.”
Since the two sides started working together quite a while ago, publishing this article now feels somewhat belated. The article specifically mentions “thousands upon thousands of merchants that accept WeChat Pay”—and at that scale, it can only really be referring to offline merchants.
Could this be hinting that the two sides are planning to deepen their partnership further? For example, by rolling out in-store QR-code payments? If so, given WeChat’s card acceptance fees, it would probably only make sense to support Visa Debit. While Visa Debit issuance globally still trails UnionPay, its worldwide acceptance footprint is extremely strong. Stay tuned~!