China has taken multiple measures to further optimize payment services, and foreign friends have felt a significant change - "I can already pay like a local"

An expatriate uses a mobile phone mini-program to book park tickets at a coffee shop in Wangjing, Beijing. Photo by Kang Jie

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China has concluded visa exemption agreements with more than 150 countries covering different passports, and more and more foreigners are coming to China to travel, study, live and work. Recently, the relevant Chinese authorities have introduced a number of measures to guide relevant institutions to further improve the level of payment services and better meet the diversified payment service needs of foreign visitors to China. The process of opening an account, registering and binding an overseas bank card has become more convenient, more key places and key merchants have accepted overseas bank cards, and there are more foreign currency exchange outlets...... With the efforts of many parties, a more convenient, high-quality and efficient payment environment is taking shape.

"Welcome to China. You can choose from a range of payment services such as mobile payments, bank cards, cash, and more. This guide will show you how to get and use each type of payment service......"

Recently, the People's Bank of China issued the "Payment Guide for Foreign Visitors to China", which introduces the acquisition methods and use processes of five payment services such as mobile payment, bank card and cash in an illustrated and textual manner, and "swipes" in the circle of friends of many foreign friends.

Accelerate the opening of overseas bank card acceptance by merchants, further optimize foreign currency exchange services, and promote the binding of overseas bank cards to WeChat or Alipay more conveniently...... Recently, China's payment services have been upgraded again, which has been praised by many foreign friends: "A mobile phone travels all over the world, and the payment in China is very 'silky'" and "a variety of payment methods make my life and work in China more convenient".

"The whole card binding process was successful in less than a minute"

"A few days ago, I tried to bind WeChat and Alipay with my VISA card, but I didn't expect the whole card binding process to be very fast, no need to use passport verification, and it was successful in less than a minute. Australian Jack's wife is Chinese, and he recently followed his wife to visit relatives in China, and he heard from his family that the process of binding foreign bank cards with mobile phone software is now simplified, so he decided to try.

Jack had been to China with his wife a few times before, and at that time, the process of binding mobile payment was a bit complicated, so he had to give up, and his wife paid for it every time. "After tying up the card, I can finally go out to pay for my own purchases in China, and most of the shops here accept mobile payments, and now I only need to bring a mobile phone with me. ”

Jack's experience stems from a series of policy initiatives that China has introduced in recent years. In 2023, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Several Measures on Unleashing the Potential of Tourism Consumption and Promoting the High-quality Development of the Tourism Industry", which proposes to improve the convenience of inbound tourists to use overseas bank cards and various electronic payment methods, as well as the convenience of foreign currency exchange. In March this year, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Further Optimizing Payment Services and Enhancing Payment Convenience", which put forward requirements in improving the bank card acceptance environment, optimizing the cash use environment, and enhancing the convenience of mobile payment.

With the support and guidance of the People's Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, since 2023, Alipay and Tenpay have joined hands with commercial banks, clearing institutions and card organizations to implement a series of optimization measures, on the one hand, to promote "foreign card binding", and overseas bank cards can be bound to Alipay or WeChat for consumption in domestic merchants; On the other hand, it supports "outsourcing for domestic use", and more and more overseas e-wallets can be used in China.

At present, foreign friends can use their existing overseas mobile phone numbers, bank card numbers, etc., to open mobile payments in China. China UnionPay has interconnected with nearly 200 overseas wallets, supporting overseas wallet users such as K PLUS (Thailand), Naver Pay (South Korea), GoPayz (Malaysia) and other overseas wallet users to spend conveniently in China. Alipay, Tenpay, etc. have introduced 13 overseas wallets, such as Touch'n Go eWallet (Malaysia), Kakao Pay (South Korea), HiPay (Mongolia), Changi Pay (Singapore), etc. In addition, both Alipay and WeChat foreign card payment have increased the single transaction limit for foreign visitors to China from US$1,000 to US$5,000, and the annual cumulative transaction limit from US$10,000 to US$50,000.

The registration and certification process is more streamlined. Taking WeChat Pay as an example, when overseas users open it for the first time, they can directly make authentication-free micropayments within a certain amount of money while only binding a foreign card. Subsequently, users can choose to improve real-name authentication and increase the transaction limit. According to the characteristics of foreigners' name formats, WeChat Pay supports a variety of formats and is compatible. When users need to change the relevant authentication information, they can modify the main information without canceling the original real-name account, and support security operations such as quick password reset through customer service and face verification. On the eve of the Spring Festival this year, Tenpay launched a tiered verification scheme, which allows foreigners to directly bind a foreign card with only a simple identity information, and can pay in most life scenarios within a certain amount.

More details of the service are being optimized. On March 18, Alipay App piloted the launch of multi-language translation services, expanding from the original Chinese and English languages to 16 languages, and the translation service can be applied to scenarios such as taxis, hotel reservations, scenic spot tickets, bus rides, and exchange rate inquiries in the Alipay App. The relevant person in charge of Alipay said that in the future, it will focus on high-frequency scenarios used by overseas tourists in China, and introduce more exclusive services for foreign users; At the same time, we will expand service coverage and access more card associations and overseas e-wallets, so that more foreign tourists can use their own e-wallets to scan QR codes to pay in China.

"Mobile payment in China is very convenient, and now I am used to using it, I can scan the QR code to pay when I go to restaurants, cafes, and supermarkets, and the exchange rate will be displayed in real time. Jack said.

There are more places to go to withdraw cash from your wild card

At Beijing Capital International Airport, the Russian girl Huiren came to the newly opened overseas guest payment service center for consultation. Before coming to China, she had confirmed in advance with the hotel she had booked that she could use an overseas bank card to pay. When she first arrived in China, she was very concerned about whether she could use overseas bank cards to pay in more places. The staff told her that many hotels, scenic spots, and restaurants in Beijing can now swipe wild cards, and they also assisted her in remitting change. "I don't have to worry about payment problems and I'm looking forward to my journey in China. Huiren said.

Due to the different payment habits between China and foreign countries, some foreigners are accustomed to using bank cards or cash, and they encounter some inconveniences when paying. At the regular policy briefing of the State Council, Zhang Qingsong, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, introduced that there are three difficulties in the inconvenience of foreign personnel in China to pay: First, the overseas bank card payment rate is higher than the domestic bank card payment rate; Second, the number of merchants accepting overseas bank cards is small; The third is that merchants sometimes have no change to make change.

A number of banks have accelerated the expansion of the overseas bank card acceptance environment. At present, ICBC's 130,000 commercial outdoor card POS machines support the consumption of foreign cards organized by the five major card organizations, and 800,000 POS machines have the function of acquiring foreign cards; As of the end of February, the number of foreign card merchants accepted by Bank of China increased by 13% compared to the beginning of this year.

Recently, China UnionPay has launched the "Splendid Action 2024" with the goal of "all-domain, full-scenario, and all-solution", which will be jointly promoted by all parties in the industry in accordance with the "30+X" model. China UnionPay will take the lead in investing 3 billion yuan in key cities and key scenarios for the transformation of acceptance terminals, signage placement, publicity and promotion, etc. Overseas, China UnionPay has issued more than 230 million UnionPay cards in 81 countries and regions, and nearly 200 local wallets in 35 countries and regions. Overseas personnel can apply for UnionPay cards locally and bring them to China to withdraw cash using ATMs or use merchant POS machines to swipe the card.

In response to the problem of high foreign card rates, the People's Bank of China is guiding the Payment and Clearing Association to play the role of an industry self-regulatory organization, and negotiate with major international card associations such as Visa and Mastercard to promote lower transaction fees to reduce merchant acceptance costs.

In order to achieve cash cover, the level of foreign exchange and cash services is also improving. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) proposes to ensure that important scenarios such as ports and foreign-related hotels have at least one of the five types of foreign currency exchange channels. Mainly bank outlets with exchange marks, ATMs that support the use of overseas bank cards to withdraw cash, foreign currency exchange agencies authorized by banks, individual domestic and foreign currency exchange authorized institutions, and some self-service exchange machines are also arranged, which can exchange foreign currencies by themselves. Encourage qualified individual domestic and foreign currency exchange licensing institutions and bank outlets to expand the supply of foreign currency exchange.

At present, Bank of Communications' cash-based self-service devices support cash withdrawals from foreign cards; Outlets with foreign exchange settlement and sales qualifications can provide foreign currency cash exchange services. Bank of Communications has cooperated with a number of hotels and other foreign-related service institutions across the country to carry out the business of redemption points. China CITIC Bank has stepped up the transformation of ATMs and increased the number of cash self-service machines that accept overseas bank cards such as Visa and MasterCard. In terms of foreign currency exchange, at present, nearly 1,200 branches of China CITIC Bank with foreign exchange business qualifications can accept foreign currency exchange business for foreign visitors to China, and can provide customers with RMB small-denomination cash.

Collaborate and improve the convenient payment chain

Improving the convenience of payment for foreigners is a systematic project, which requires the close cooperation of multiple departments and forces.

Multiple departments proposed improvement measures. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism proposed that it will promote the establishment of software and hardware facilities required to accept mobile payment, bank cards, cash, etc., such as national 4A-level scenic spots, national tourist resorts, national night culture and tourism consumption clusters, and national tourism and leisure blocks, and upgrade payment facilitation for key cultural and tourism scenarios such as tourist attractions, resorts, and cultural and museum venues. The Ministry of Transport proposed that it will promote the enrichment of ticket purchase channels, facilitate domestic and foreign personnel to purchase tickets online with ID cards, passports, foreigners' permanent residence permits and other documents, and continue to retain manual ticket windows and manual ticket checks; Actively promote major domestic online car-hailing platform companies to expand payment channels, and some enterprises provide foreigners with "overseas mobile phone number registration + international credit card payment" services. The Ministry of Commerce proposes to guide various consumption venues such as retail to provide diversified payment methods such as cash, bank cards, and mobile payments to meet the payment needs of various consumer groups.

Everywhere is trying to act. Beijing is promoting the upgrading of the city's wild card acceptance capacity in key business districts, scenic spots, parks, hotels and other important scenarios, and establishing a demonstration area for overseas guest payment services at the Capital International Airport and Daxing International Airport. The two airports have a total of 5 bank outlets, 7 exchange franchise outlets, and Daxing Airport has also set up a WeChat palm payment entry device. Since its operation for more than a month, the demonstration zone has handled more than 70,000 business transactions.

The Shanghai portal has a special section dedicated to summarizing relevant information about expatriate payments, so that users can find what they need in a short period of time. Click on the webpage and the first column will be "How to pay like a local", which includes a video and text explanation in English, and the steps are clear. Shanghai has also deployed and promoted the opening of wild card POS machines in places such as three-star hotels and above, and tourist attractions at and above 3A levels, so as to optimize the payment services for overseas tourists.

Since November 2023, Zhejiang Province has launched the implementation of the payment facilitation project for overseas personnel, focusing on creating a number of high-quality service areas, exploring a number of innovative applications, and carrying out a series of theme publicity. As of the end of February this year, the number of merchants in the province that can accept overseas personal mobile payment has reached 2.56 million.

The payment environment has been continuously optimized, allowing many foreign tourists to have a better consumption experience. Wan Mingchuan, a tourist from Morocco, withdrew a few hundred yuan in cash from an ATM when he entered China, but he used it for little during his trip, because he used mobile payment most of the time and swiped his credit card several times. "The trip was perfect, and in a short period of time, I was able to pay like a local," he said. In China, you can choose one of your preferred payment methods, and these payment methods are convenient. ”

(Ye Zi, Peng Xunwen, Kang Jie, Zhu Jiale, Zhang Yueyi, Zhang Qi participated in the writing)

Source: People's Daily Online

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