On May 22, 2026, the 10th Silk Road International Expo Financial Session was held in Xi’an.
Tencent’s cross-border payment platform TenPay Global signed a memorandum of cooperation with Eldik Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic to promote the interconnection of the two parties’ payment systems relying on the “Cross-border QR Code Unified Gateway” guided by the People’s Bank of China.
This means that tourists coming to China from Central Asian countries such as the Kyrgyz Republic do not need to download a new app or bind a bank card. They can open their home wallet and scan the WeChat Pay QR code to complete their purchases.
So far, Tencent has promoted interconnection with more than 40 overseas wallet institutions around the world.
From the beginning of WeChat Pay’s overseas expansion to connecting local wallets, local life service platforms and cross-border financial institutions, the carrier of interconnection is no longer the only one. The key is to find real scenarios and markets, lay down the infrastructure, and leave the choice to the market and users.
A few days ago, reporters had a conversation with Chen Qiru, Vice President of Tencent Financial Technology, to discuss Tencent’s considerations for participating in cross-border payment cooperation in Central Asia and other issues.
Chen Qiru said that “integration” has two meanings: hard connectivity and soft connectivity.
Hard connectivity refers to the connectivity of infrastructure, such as China-Europe trains, ports, etc.; soft connectivity refers to interconnection represented by cross-border payments, and now Europe and Asia are connected by a QR code.
The cross-border QR code unified gateway is a key infrastructure, and Tencent is deeply involved in its construction. Its core value is to allow overseas wallets to “connect with one point” and access tens of millions of WeChat payment merchants in China. Overseas users can pay by scanning the code with their own wallets after coming to China.
Regarding the future shape of the cross-border payment network, Chen Qiru introduced that after serving Chinese people traveling abroad for many years, WeChat Pay has covered airports, duty-free shops, etc. in more than 77 countries and regions.
Nowadays, foreigners are flocking to China. Through the cross-border QR code unified gateway, overseas wallets can enter the Chinese market with low threshold.
Through the “1 + 1 + 1” cooperation model, Tencent joins hands with domestic and foreign financial cooperation institutions and life service platforms to build a super payment network.
This network is continuously open and connected by all parties, and has the characteristics of diversity, tolerance, equality and backward compatibility.
When talking about the key points of the “super network”, Chen Qiru believed that we should follow the trend and embed the ecology into the local network, with products and services as the core.
The choice of market depends on whether users and merchants are willing to continue using the network.
Tencent’s overseas business implementation respects local payment networks, chooses connection methods based on local user habits, and provides good connections and support in the middle and back offices.
The criterion for selecting new overseas markets is connection, that is, appropriate basic carriers, cooperation with financial institutions to provide compliance support and specific usage scenarios.
Taking Eldik Bank as an example, it believes that the Chinese market can bring a large number of cross-border transactions and real value, so it is willing to reinvest in development according to standards.
Chen Qiru also pointed out that “payment is more than payment.”
Although personal consumption payments are becoming more and more convenient, there is still a lot of room for improvement in corporate cross-border payments.
Economic and trade exchanges between Shaanxi and Central Asia are growing rapidly. Tencent hopes to work with domestic and foreign financial partners to reduce the cost of cross-border flow of funds, improve timeliness, digitize and facilitate cross-border processes for enterprises, and make cross-border transactions easier.
