MNI BRIEF: China Visitor Mobile Payments Surge in H1

Over 5 million overseas visitors to China used mobile payments in the first half of 2024, a fourfold increase year-on-year, as the central bank has been working on upgrading its payment services since this February, according to officials of the People’s Bank of China in a briefing on Friday.

Foreign visitor mobile payment transactions in China exceeded 90 million and totaled over CNY14 billion in H1, both seeing a sevenfold increase year-on-year since the PBOC largely increased payment limits and simplified processes for linking overseas bank cards to mobile payment applications, the officials said. Foreign nationals can register with Alipay and WeChat using overseas phone numbers and link them to foreign bank cards for payments, they said. (see:MNI BRIEF: PBOC To Support Foreign Visitors' Digital Payments)

Visitors from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Mongolia, and certain other countries can use their local digital wallets for QR code payments rather than download China’s mobile application, they noted, highlighting that key China vendors have accelerated the acceptance of foreign bank cards.