WeChat Pay is accelerating the establishment of a global payment network.
Recently, Tencent announced that its cross-border payment platform TenPay Global and PayPal World have achieved interconnection. PayPal users in China can make smooth purchases at tens of millions of WeChat payment merchants in China. The first phase will be open to US users, and other markets will also be connected in stages.
This cooperation has enabled mainstream electronic wallets in Europe and the United States to be directly used in China by scanning QR codes.
This also means that cross-border payment infrastructure has moved from “interconnection” to “interoperability”.
On the user side, overseas PayPal users do not need to download WeChat, bind overseas bank cards, or exchange RMB when making purchases in China. They only need to open the commonly used PayPal wallet APP to generate the corresponding payment QR code, and directly scan the WeChat payment code of domestic merchants to complete the payment.
There is no need to change equipment or adjust the QR code on the merchant side, just collect payment as usual.
From a technical perspective, in the past, overseas wallets had to be connected one by one to the domestic payment network, which was costly and had inconsistent standards.
Today, under the guidance of the Central Bank, the China Payment and Clearing Association has taken the lead in building a cross-border QR code unified gateway to support “one-point access” for domestic and foreign institutions and provide unified technical interfaces and transaction information transfer and distribution services.
For WeChat Pay, this cooperation is undoubtedly a major expansion of the “outsourcing and internal use” circle of friends.
Data shows that from January to April 2026, the number of foreign tourists using WeChat to bind international bank cards in China increased by nearly 80% year-on-year, and the engine for passenger flow growth has been started.
The popularity of inbound tourism continues to rise, and WeChat Pay needs enough overseas wallet entrances to receive this wave of dividends.
Currently, WeChat Pay has supported 36 overseas cooperative wallets to access the Chinese merchant network.
In addition, WeChat Pay has also launched a series of supporting measures: from now until December 31, users who bind a foreign card for the first time can enjoy a 3% handling fee exemption for a daily limit of 1,000 yuan for 90 consecutive days after completing the first purchase; the 3% handling fee will continue to be waived for single purchases of 200 yuan or less throughout the year.
It is worth mentioning that industry insiders have analyzed that PayPal’s stock price has continued to decline in recent years and its performance growth has been weak. This cooperation with WeChat Pay is more like a “jedi counterattack.”
Relevant data shows that PayPal’s revenue in the fourth quarter of 2025 was US$8.68 billion, a year-on-year increase of only 3.7%, lower than analysts’ expectations of US$8.78 billion; the total payment volume of online brand checkouts only increased by 1%, far lower than the previous 5% growth maintained all year round; net new active accounts were also close to stagnant, with only a net increase of 1.2 million in the fourth quarter.
At the beginning of 2025, PayPal’s stock price hit a nearly two-year high of $91.53 per share on January 17, but has been declining since then.
As of May 28, 2026, the stock price has fallen to US$43.76 per share, a cumulative decline of more than 52%, and the total market value is US$39.22 billion.
PayPal’s senior vice president once revealed that currently nearly 30% of cross-border shopping users choose to shop online from Chinese merchants, which has occupied an extremely important position in PayPal’s global business.
From 2022 to 2024, the compound annual growth rate of the total cross-border payments completed by Chinese merchants through it will reach 21%.
In 2026, PayPal will continue to increase investment in the Chinese market, especially deepening services in the field of combining AI and payment.
It is worth noting that Alipay+, a cross-border payment network owned by another payment giant Ant International, also announced on May 27 that it will open overseas e-wallet cross-border payment services in Latin America. The first phase will cover Argentina and Chile, and will gradually expand to other countries and regions.
Currently, Alipay+ is connected to 50 mainstream e-wallets, super apps, mobile banks, and QR code systems in more than ten countries and regions around the world, and its ecosystem covers 150 million merchants and 2 billion consumer accounts worldwide.
In general, the “handshake” between WeChat Pay and PayPal goes beyond the complementary resources of the two payment giants. It also reflects the deep evolution of China’s cross-border payment infrastructure from “heavy card binding” to “light interoperability”.
With the implementation of the unified cross-border QR code gateway, digital payment is accelerating to become the “lingua franca” of global economic and trade exchanges.
The key to future competition among payment giants is not who seizes the traffic first, but who can truly achieve seamless interoperability.
