In 2026, the field of cross-border payments will usher in a major breakthrough. TenPay Global, a cross-border payment platform owned by Tencent, and PayPal World, the global payment giant, announced their interconnection.
This move is like a pebble thrown into a calm lake, causing ripples in the payment industry.
After coming to China, PayPal users do not need to download WeChat or exchange RMB. They can directly open their PayPal wallet and make smooth purchases at tens of millions of WeChat payment merchants in China.
The service will be available to US users in the first phase, and other markets will be accessible in phases.
This is not a simple technical interface docking. In the global layout of the two organizations, this is a key step to “complement each other’s shortcomings”.
For PayPal, this is an opening it has opened in China’s offline consumption scene over the years; for WeChat Pay, it is an important part of improving the “inbound payment” landscape and building a closed-loop cross-border service.
From a user perspective, the core breakthrough of this cooperation lies in the simplicity of the payment process.
Previously, the mainstream method for overseas tourists to use mobile payment in China was “bundling foreign cards within”. They needed to bind their overseas bank cards to WeChat Pay or Alipay, and they had to download domestic APPs and complete real-name authentication, which was a cumbersome process.
The “outsourcing and internal use” cooperation model between WeChat Pay and PayPal allows global PayPal users to come to China. Whether they actively scan the code or present the payment code, they can spend at WeChat Pay merchants as long as they open their PayPal wallet.
As early as 2018, Tencent used the “outsourcing and internal use” model through the WeChat Hong Kong dollar wallet. Now it has 36 overseas cooperative wallets online and continues to introduce more e-wallets from APEC economies.
It is worth noting that inbound consumer demand is recovering rapidly.
WeChat payment data shows that from January to April 2026, the number of transactions made by foreign tourists in China using WeChat to bind international bank cards increased by nearly 80% year-on-year.
WeChat Pay is now connected to PayPal, aiming at the incremental market of card slots.
In the context of the domestic mobile payment market being basically saturated, finding a new growth curve is a common issue for the two giants. Tencent’s “cross-border” path includes overseas payments by Chinese people and inbound consumption payments by foreigners. By connecting with PayPal users, WeChat Pay can gain access to huge overseas traffic.
In recent years, PayPal has been in a worrying situation.
The financial report for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025 released on February 3, 2026 showed that the growth of its core business has slowed down significantly. The growth rate of active users of PayPal brand checkout has dropped to 1%. The transaction volume of active accounts in the past 12 months has dropped by 5% year-on-year. The stock price plummeted 20% in a single day after the release of the financial report. The market value has shrunk significantly from the historical peak of approximately US$360 billion in 2021 to approximately US$38 billion in early February 2026.
In the Chinese market, PayPal has struggled to expand. It relies on Guofubao to carry out cross-border payment business, but it has not been able to penetrate the massive domestic offline consumption scenarios, and its personal payment influence is limited.
This interconnection with WeChat Pay allows PayPal to access tens of millions of WeChat Pay merchant networks with extremely low technology and customer acquisition costs, filling a key shortcoming in offline acceptance capabilities in China.
Wang Pengbo, a senior analyst in the financial industry at Broadcom Analytics, believes that this cooperation is a manifestation of the two giants’ support for the central bank’s unified gateway construction. It has opened up the consumption path of tens of millions of merchants in China for American users. In the short term, it will significantly increase the foreign card transaction volume of WeChat payment. In the medium and long term, it is expected to drive more international wallet access and form a network effect.
The unified gateway for cross-border QR codes is the basis for the successful cooperation between WeChat Pay and PayPal.
It supports domestic and foreign participating institutions to carry out cross-border QR code payment cooperation through “one-point docking”, provides participating institutions with a unified technical interface, cross-border transaction information transfer and distribution, transaction monitoring and analysis and other services, and supports the provision of more efficient, convenient and secure cross-border QR code payment services for domestic and foreign users.
Dong Ximiao, chief economist of China Merchants Union, believes that the unified cross-border QR code gateway is a major infrastructure innovation for cross-border interconnection in China’s payment and clearing field. The access of WeChat Pay and PayPal marks a substantial leap in the cross-border payment infrastructure from “interconnection” to “interoperability”.
In early 2026, 11 departments including the Cyberspace Administration of China jointly issued the “Implementation Opinions on Improving the Convenience of Digital Entry Services for Overseas Personnel”, proposing to enhance the internationalization and convenience of digital entry services by 2027.
Dong Ximiao said that payment facilitation is a key part of unlocking the consumption potential of overseas people in China. As mainstream overseas wallets are connected to the unified gateway, more foreign tourists will come to China to consume more smoothly, and the global appeal of China’s digital payment business cards will be further enhanced.
In recent years, domestic payment institutions, overseas card organizations, international payment giants and overseas wallets have all carried out many practices in optimizing payment services in China.
For example, China UnionPay launched the “Nihao China” App, Alipay’s “External Card Binding” supports binding a variety of international bank cards, and Visa, MasterCard, American Express, etc. support “swiping cards to pass through the gate” in the Beijing subway.
Wang Pengbo analyzed that the Chinese market is hugely attractive to overseas card organizations, payment giants and other institutions. China Mobile Payment is shifting from one-way output to two-way compatibility. This “two-way rush” is guided by policies and driven by market demand.
