Why it’s a big deal that Alipay and WeChat Pay are opening up to tourists
Foreigners without a Chinese bank account can now pay with Tencent and Alibaba’s apps in China using international credit cards
(Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba.)
Until now, travelers needed a Chinese bank account to load up their electronic wallets… which is a bit of a problem for anyone who doesn’t actually live in China. So instead of paying with their smartphones like locals do, tourists and business travelers had to whip out cash instead. And some say that in China, banknotes don’t always work.
“A lot of restaurants now in China now only accept Alipay or WeChat Pay, and so the problem is you can’t go and eat in a lot of restaurants you want to go to,” said Shaun Rein, founder of the China Market Research Group and author of “The War for China’s Wallet.”
“The other thing that foreigners complain about is that it’s very difficult for them to book taxis or to arrange for tickets, like at the Forbidden City and a lot of national attractions.”
Unlike in the West, China’s consumers leapfrogged credit cards and have gone straight from cash to smartphones. One reason is that Chinese apps have embraced the QR code — a far simpler, cheaper and more accessible payment method compared to NFC, adopted by Western apps like Apple Pay.