There are new moves in cross-border payment interconnection.
WeChat Pay recently announced that payment QR codes from five countries, including South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, can be connected to WeChat Pay.
In other words, in these five countries, users do not need to look for the WeChat QR code, but can use WeChat Pay to scan the QR code of the local payment platform to pay like locals.
The person in charge of WeChat Pay said that the access to the QR codes of the payment platforms in these five countries is not a single point of cooperation between scattered merchants, but a comprehensive and compliant interoperability between WeChat Pay and the payment infrastructure of the relevant countries.
Compared with the cumbersome process of switching between multiple payment software or exchanging foreign currencies in advance when going abroad, now Chinese tourists only need to bring a mobile phone and open WeChat to easily complete offline consumption in relevant countries in multiple scenarios without having to learn new operations.
Currently, the continued popularity of outbound and inbound tourism has brought more demands and opportunities for cross-border payments.
Data released by the National Immigration Administration shows that in the first quarter of 2026, a total of 185 million people were inspected across the country, a year-on-year increase of 13.5%.
WeChat Pay, Alipay and other platforms continue to expand the breadth and depth of cross-border payments.
Currently, WeChat cross-border payment has covered 78 countries and regions around the world and supports 36 currencies.
Alipay+, Ant International’s global wallet integration gateway, connects more than 40 electronic wallets around the world. In 2025, it has reached cooperation with more than 10 national QR code networks, covering more than 150 million merchants and 1.8 billion consumer accounts in more than 100 markets around the world.
While facilitating outbound payment and consumption, in order to optimize the inbound payment experience, my country on the one hand promotes “foreign card binding”. Overseas bank cards can be bound to Alipay or WeChat for consumption at domestic merchants. On the other hand, it supports “outsourcing for internal use”. More and more overseas e-wallets can be used domestically through cooperation with domestic payment institutions.
Data shows that WeChat Pay and TenPay Global, a cross-border payment platform owned by Tencent, have joined the cross-border QR code unified gateway and are promoting interoperability and cooperation with more than 40 overseas wallet institutions around the world.
Throughout 2025, more than 10 million inbound users used Alipay’s two types of convenient payment services, “foreign card binding” and Alipay+ “outsourced internal use”, and related inbound consumption increased by more than 100% year-on-year.
In recent years, my country’s payment field has continued to make new progress. Multiple types of barcodes recognize and scan each other, multi-national QR code networks are interconnected, and business rules are coordinated and improved.
At the same time, a series of open interconnection achievements have attracted attention, such as the interconnection of the fast payment systems between the mainland and Hong Kong, the online trial operation of the unified cross-border QR code gateway, and the launch of the China-Indonesia cross-border QR code interconnection project. The international influence and competitiveness of my country’s payment industry have continued to increase.
The 2026 Payment and Settlement Work Conference held by the People’s Bank of China in January this year clearly stated that in 2026, it will accelerate the construction of the RMB cross-border payment system, promote cross-border payment interconnection, and promote the diversified and multi-level development of the cross-border payment system.
Experts said that my country’s payment field continues to move towards openness and interconnection, which not only facilitates users’ payment and consumption, but also promotes the industry to achieve a leap from “big” to “strong”.
The payment industry is gathering synergy for development to better connect the Chinese economy with the global economy and contribute “China’s solution” to global regional payment interconnection.
