However, Alibaba and WeChat said yesterday travelers will be able to link their international cards to their payment apps now.
— Alipay (@Alipay) November 5, 2019 In a separate statement, WeChat’s owner Tencent said it’ll support American Express cards in addition to the aforementioned cards. Mobile payments are quite popular in China. According to a report by the World Economic Forum published in May, the payment method has 35 percent penetration with $1,612 of average annual spend. In 2018, users in China spent $41.3 trillion through 60.5 billion mobile transactions – a 61.2-percent growth over the previous year. As per CNBC, last year, a staggering 141 million people visited China. That is a huge opportunity for local companies like Alibaba and WeChat to entice some of those visitors to use their payment services while they’re in the country.
