Nation facilitates mobile payments for global visitors

An American arriving at Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport in Guangdong province can buy a coffee with PayPal. A South Korean shopping for electronics in Huaqiangbei, a sprawling electronics hub, can pay with Hana Pay. A Vietnamese visitor dining in Shekou can settle the bill with ZaloPay.

In each case, there is no need to download a new Chinese payment app. Visitors can open the digital wallet they already use at home, scan a WeChat Pay QR code and pay in much the same way they would back home.

That seemingly mundane transaction is becoming part of China's effort to make its mobile payment ecosystem more accessible to foreign visitors, as Shenzhen prepares to welcome more travelers and businesspeople during China's APEC host year.

TenPay Global, Tencent's cross-border payment platform, is participating in China's unified cross-border QR payment gateway, connecting WeChat Pay's vast merchant network with nearly 50 overseas digital wallets.

In August, TenPay Global and Southeast Asian digital wallet ShopeePay announced a partnership that initially allows ShopeePay users from Singapore and Thailand to make QR-code payments in China.

Wallets already connected include PayPal in the United States, Hana Pay and Travel Wallet in South Korea and ZaloPay in Vietnam, while more wallets from APEC economies are joining the network.

The shift is particularly visible in Shenzhen, a technology and manufacturing hub that has spent decades drawing entrepreneurs from across Asia.

For Choi Cheol-ho, a South Korean businessman who arrived in Shenzhen in 1999 to trade computer components, the evolution of payments mirrors the city's transformation. Choi opened a South Korean restaurant that serves pork bone soup, tofu stew and other dishes to Korean business travelers and long-term residents. It has also become a gathering place where meals sometimes blur into business.

Foreign business travelers once had to exchange money before arriving, calculate exchange rates themselves and carry cash around the city, he recalled.

"But now, South Korean visitors can pay through digital wallets, with currency conversion handled automatically. It doesn't just make things easier for our restaurant; it can also attract more foreign tourists to China," he said.

The move comes as Shenzhen prepares for an influx of visitors from across the Asia-Pacific during China's APEC host year, putting the city's ability to accommodate foreign travelers under a brighter spotlight.

China's mobile-payment revolution made everyday transactions extraordinarily convenient for domestic consumers, but that same ecosystem could be daunting for foreigners accustomed to cash, cards or payment apps that did not connect to Chinese QR networks, industry experts said.

Connecting overseas wallets directly to China's merchant network offers a different solution: rather than asking visitors to adapt to China's payment habits, the infrastructure increasingly allows China's payment system to adapt to theirs, they added.

The People's Bank of China, the central bank, launched the unified cross-border QR payment gateway in July 2025, initially prioritizing the use of overseas wallets inside China.

Lu Lei, deputy head of the PBOC, said in a separate conference in August that interoperability among domestic QR-code payment systems is an important step toward opening-up and connecting China's domestic market, advancing the development of a unified national market and supporting the industry's sustainable growth.

chengyu@chinadaily.com.cn