3% service charge free for single transaction below 200 yuan, WeChat, Alipay foreign card binding service upgrade problem | business | foreign card
Significant progress has been made in facilitating the payment of overseas users to the mainland of China, and the third-party payment platforms Alipay and WeChat payment have successively completed business upgrading in the binding of foreign cards.
On July 20th, according to the official WeChat Pay news, the WeChat Pay external card service has been fully upgraded. Currently, overseas users can use mobile payment in the vast majority of domestic merchants, including catering, transportation, alcohol and tourism, supermarkets and other fields, after binding their international bank cards with WeChat Pay. At the same time, wildcard users can also use various payment methods such as scanning and being scanned, mini program payment, password free deduction, and in app payment.
The foreign card binding and usage guide released by WeChat Pay shows that overseas individuals only need three steps to bind a foreign card through WeChat Pay: first, download or update the WeChat/WeChat application; second, find the WeChat Pay entrance; and third, fill in identity information and bind the card. The supported wildcards include VISA, DinersClub, Discover, JCB, and Master.
At present, foreigners can use six kinds of certificates to open WeChat payment, including passport, Hong Kong and Macao residents' travel permit to the mainland, Taiwan residents' travel permit to the mainland, Hong Kong and Macao residents' residence permit, Taiwan residents' residence permit, and foreigners' permanent residence permit. The mobile phone number needed to verify in the process of card binding can only accept the SMS verification code, not necessarily the mobile phone number in Chinese Mainland.
It is understood that using a foreign card through WeChat Pay will have a certain limit, which is 6000 yuan per transaction, 50000 yuan per month, and 60000 yuan per year. The payment exchange rate is calculated based on the exchange rate of the card organization and issuing bank to which the foreign card belongs.
Regarding the issue of transaction fees of concern to the outside world, WeChat Pay stated that in order to support the small and high-frequency consumption needs of foreign card users, WeChat Pay will bear a single foreign card transaction fee of RMB 200 or less. This also means that users with a single transaction amount less than or equal to 200 yuan are exempt from handling fees; When the amount of a single transaction exceeds 200 yuan, a handling fee of 3% will be charged. If the user initiates a refund, the handling fee will be refunded proportionally.
In May of this year, Alipay also released "One Picture to Understand Alipay Binding Wild Card", and its wild card service is basically consistent with WeChat payment in terms of recommended use scenarios, service charge collection, exchange rate calculation, etc. However, among the types of foreign cards supported, WeChat payment has increased the JCB card compared with Alipay. In terms of transaction limit, Alipay's single transaction is 3000 yuan, and WeChat payment's single transaction is 6000 yuan.
Different from consumer payment, foreign cards in Chinese Mainland currently cannot use red envelope, financial management, transfer and other functions.
From this point of view, key progress has been made in facilitating the consumption payment of overseas users to Chinese Mainland. Before that, according to the reporter, because the epidemic has reduced the demand for use, many domestic POS machines supporting foreign card payment have been removed due to maintenance costs and other considerations. In addition, the popularity of domestic online payment is high. After the increase of cross-border flow this year, some overseas people feel that it is inconvenient to consume in Chinese Mainland.
As early as 2019, the State Council requested in the "Opinions on Further Stimulating the Potential of Cultural and Tourism Consumption" to improve the inbound tourism environment, improve mobile payment solutions for inbound tourists, and enhance the convenience of tourist consumption. The National Development and Reform Commission also issued a document in 2020, encouraging domestic payment service institutions to cooperate with overseas card issuing institutions under the premise of legal compliance, and provide mobile payment services for overseas tourists.
WeChat and Alipay have explored how to improve the payment experience of overseas users as early as 2019. But according to the reporter's understanding, the progress of related businesses has been slow due to profitability, rates, and safety issues, and the epidemic has further stranded related work. As the Chengdu Universiade and Hangzhou Asian Games approach, the attention to related issues has also increased.
At the "2023 Summer Davos Forum" in Tianjin at the end of June this year, Chen Qiru, Vice President of Tencent Financial Technology, revealed that Tencent will gradually open the WeChat payment merchant network to international credit card or debit card organizations such as VISA in July this year, making it convenient for overseas users to bind WeChat payments with commonly used credit and debit cards in mainland China. As soon as the news came out, it attracted widespread attention.
According to the reporter, in addition to WeChat and Alipay, cloud flash payment under China UnionPay is also working with banking institutions to explore new functions, which is expected to be launched by taking the opportunity of the Asian Games to facilitate overseas people to pay on the mainland.
