China is making payments easier for international visitors
Although China has reopened, the special payment system still makes many potential tourists afraid to take holidays in China. Because from street stalls to large supermarkets, they are more likely to accept local payment systems such as Alipay and WeChat Pay, even cash is becoming difficult to use. For tourists, paying with e-wallets such as Alipay and WeChat Pay has become a real barrier. The good news is that both WeChat Pay and Alipay now allow linking overseas cards. These developments mean it will be easier for foreigners to make purchases during their trip to China.
In this article, we will talk about why China makes efforts to allow Chinese e-wallets to link overseas cards, and the inspiration overseas merchants can have from this.
You can also find more information in our other article: Alipay and Wechat Pay embrace Visa and Mastercard integration.
Why is China allowing Chinese e-wallets to link overseas cards?
Promote tourism development
As China becomes an important tourist destination, allowing overseas tourists to use payment methods they are familiar with can greatly facilitate their spending in China, thereby enhancing tourists' travel experience and thus promoting the growth of the tourism industry.
Expand global markets
Both Alipay and WeChat Pay are actively expanding their international markets. Allowing tourists to link overseas cards is part of the internationalization strategy of these payment platforms, aiming to attract more international users and expand their global influence.
Strengthen cross-border transactions
By supporting overseas cards, the cross-border transaction process can be simplified, making it easier for international users to shop and pay in China, while also helping Chinese merchants attract more international customers.
Enhance the global recognition of Chinese brands
This is also an important step to enhance the global recognition and acceptance of two Chinese brands, Alipay and WeChat Pay, which will help enhance China's competitiveness in the global digital payment field.
The reflections for European and American merchants
Data provided by Ctrip shows that China’s inbound tourism market is in an accelerated recovery stage. From January to October this year, inbound travel orders increased by 125%, close to 80% of the same period in 2019.
In China, with the opening of policies and the increase of international flights, the demand for outbound tourism has been continuously released, showing a good trend of orderly recovery. According to monitoring data from the China Tourism Academy, outbound travel destinations received a total of 40.37 million mainland tourists in the first half of the year of 2023.
There have been talks about Chinese payment e-wallets contributing to the increase in overseas tourists to a certain extent by accepting overseas cards. Tourists don’t have to worry anymore about how to pay in China.
Similarly, Overseas can also choose to accept the payment methods familiar to Chinese tourists to attract international customers and promote sales growth.
Merchants in Europe and the USA should also actively accept payment systems that are familiar and loved by Chinese tourists, such as WeChat, Alipay, and UnionPay Yunshanfu. Providing Chinese tourists with safe, convenient and fast payment methods in your store will attract a large number of clientele and contribute significantly to increased revenue.
If you are a European or American merchant, Silkpay can equip your store with just one POS terminal that can integrate Alipay, WeChat Pay and UnionPay Yunshanfu. Your store can easily accept the e-wallets that customers are familiar with, then they can complete payment safely and quickly by scanning the QR code.
For accepting payments online, Silkpay can help you integrate these payment methods via API, PaybyLink or Plugins.
Conclusion
In order to attract more international tourists and enhance their consumption experience in China, China is actively promoting Alipay and WeChat Pay to link overseas cards. This will not only help promote the development of tourism, but also enhance the convenience of cross-border transactions. At the same time, Silkpay can help European and American merchants accept these Chinese e-wallets as payment methods, thereby attracting Chinese tourists and promoting sales growth.
Source
http://www.news.cn/local/2023-11/22/c_1129987128.htm
https://finance.sina.cn/tech/2023-10-23/detail-imzsatpn4131224.d.html
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About the author: Silkpay
Based in Paris, Silkpay provides omnichannel and secure payment solutions to help physical stores and e-commerce in Europe accept more than 30 of the world's most popular payment methods: Visa, Mastercard, CB, UnionPay, Alipay+, WeChat Pay as well as Asia-Pacific’s major e-wallets.
Silkpay is a winner of the LVMH Innovation Award. The company was also selected as a finalist for the "Money 20/20" Best Startup and in the "MPE Berlin” Startup Awards. Silkpay also won the "Best Fintech" awards from Capgemini and BPCE.
Silkpay helps merchants deliver the smoothest payment experience to their customers. We are a talented and international team driven by a single goal: to improve the customer experience and make payments simple and secure.