E-payments are essential in China, but still tricky for foreign visitors

A couple of days before U.S. businessman Sascha was due to travel to Shanghai for a conference, he began preparing his cell phone. Marketplace is not using his surname to avoid identifying his company, which could face repercussions in China.

On the advice of friends, he downloaded China’s key mobile payment apps, Tencent’s WeChat and Alibaba’s Alipay, which allow users to send and accept payments with a specialized QR code. It took him about 10 minutes to complete the process. He recorded some voice notes for us along the way.

“It looks like I have Alipay and WeChat set up. Now the question is, are they going work when I get to China?” he said in a recording made during set-up.

China’s digital economy has been evolving at a faster pace since the pandemic. Daily tasks like calling a cab or ordering and paying at a restaurant are all done mostly through Alipay and WeChat. According to the Chinese central bank, in 2023 there were 340 trillion yuan ($48 trillion) worth of third-party online payments.

Alipay and WeChat make up over 90% of mobile payments. However, it has not been easy for foreigners to sign up for the payment apps. To attract more foreign visitors, cities like Shanghai, aided by the country’s central bank, have pushed to make mobile payments more visitor-friendly.

Earlier this year, the People’s Bank of China asked Alipay and WeChat to simplify their extensive identity verification processes. Currently, residents in China must provide a Chinese bank account, a local cell number and Chinese ID number to sign up for the payment apps, because the country has strict currency controls.

Foreigners residing in China must provide passport details and a scan of their passport information page. At one point, Alipay required an additional step using facial recognition. When that failed, I had to take a photo of myself holding up my passport information page for manual verification. Visitors concerned about privacy might not be willing to undergo this process.

Now, Alipay and WeChat require visitors like Sascha to register with just their U.S. cell number and credit card. But there are limits. He cannot send money to his colleagues or friends, and is only able to make smaller purchases. The current limit for a single transaction on Alipay is $2,000, up from $500. WeChat has not disclosed its limit. If Sascha wanted to spend more than that, he would have to submit his passport and other details to the apps for identification review.

But China’s central bank has also said the per-transaction limit for foreign visitors in apps will be increased to $5,000 and capped at $50,000 annually, up from $10,000.

Sascha had a mostly smooth process setting up the apps, with only two hiccups. He could link his Mastercard to Alipay, but not to WeChat, and needed a second credit card. At one point, Sascha was given Chinese-only instructions on Alipay, but he managed to finish the setup.

Once Sascha landed in Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport, he tried to buy a ticket for the maglev, which is the bullet train that takes him closer to the city center. It took him two tries.

“First there was a machine that wanted me to scan a [WeChat] QR code and that sent my phone to a page that didn’t resolve,” he said in a voice note.

Eventually, he found a booth where a staffer scanned Sascha’s WeChat QR code.

“Not perfect but it worked,” he said.

Sascha ran into the same problem when he connected to the Shanghai subway system.

“Now I’m stuck at Longyang Road station because I forgot to get cash out and my WeChat pay doesn’t work on the vending machine,” he said in a voice note. “That’s really frustrating.”

Sascha has U.S. credit cards on him, but most places in China don’t accept foreign credit cards, partly because of the high fees of 2% to 3% that merchants pay, compared to 1% or less for WeChat and Alipay. The likes of Visa and Mastercard have reportedly lowered their fees recently for merchants. 

Sascha persisted, and 10 minutes later he sorted things out.

“I’m very proud of myself. To get the metro ticket I had to scan the barcode on the screen with the Alipay app,” Sascha said. “The second time it [was] resolved and let me pay for it.”

Three hours later, he was starting to get the hang of China’s mobile payments.

“I bought some toothpicks at a 7-Eleven by scanning my WeChat QR code and I felt like a hero,” Sascha said.

For toothpicks and any purchases of 200 yuan ($28) or less, Alipay and WeChat will absorb foreign credit card fees for users. Transactions above that amount will incur a 3% fee for users.

Over the next two days, Sascha bought shirts, rode the subway and called a cab on Didi via WeChat. He sounded elated when he bought a Thai yellow curry in the basement of a department store with Alipay.

“I was also very hungry at the time so maybe that made the emotions more intense,” Sascha said later when we met in person.

To help visitors, China’s central bank has also pushed for merchants to accept cash and foreign credit cards. A number of taxis in Shanghai and Beijing’s subway system are now allowing visitors to swipe with their overseas Visa and Mastercards. In Shanghai, the local government has issued guides on how to set up Alipay and WeChat.

It has also opened a 24-hour information desk at the Pudong airport terminal 2 this summer. Similar information desks are opening in the airport’s terminal 1 and at the Hongqiao airport at the end of September. Staff can help tourists set up Alipay and WeChat. They also sell transport and data cards. However, the desk does not address one of the most important and pressing questions for travelers: How to access the apps they use back home, such as Google, Instagram and X, which are banned in China?

“Some foreigners are very tech savvy and will do some preparations before coming to China,” an information desk staffer told Marketplace.

It is a coded way of saying travelers should download a virtual private network beforehand, though not every VPN works in China.

Sascha has one from work and was still having email problems on and off during his trip.

“This morning, I had a whole hour-long drama where I could not download any of the work files I needed,” Sascha said.

Maps are another issue.

“I’ve been trying to use Google Maps and it loads but everything in it is wrong,” Sascha said.

Google Maps does not have a license to work in China and therefore does not have the most up-to-date coordinates. The Shanghai government’s guide suggests visitors can use Gaode maps, which allows users to search addresses in English, but the results are all in Chinese. Apple Maps mostly works in China. However, Sascha cannot download it because he has an Android phone.

Though he describes himself as tech savvy, Sascha is still stumped about the map issue. He sent one last voice note to Marketplace before leaving.

“Hey Jennifer, I am being fried by the mapping problem. Yesterday I tried to go to a store that wasn’t there, and then I tried to go to a restaurant that wasn’t there. This was on Google Maps. This was even on Apple Maps,” he said. 

“I can pay for stuff, but finding the stuff is still a little tricky.”

Additional research by Charles Zhang.