A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China
blog.lerner.co.il
A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China
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Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China
#2Given that the Chinese government actively promotes tourism, the number of hoops a foreigner has to jump through to pay for things where cash isn't accepted is quite ridiculous.
Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China
#3Given that the Chinese government actively promotes tourism, the number of hoops a foreigner has to jump through to pay for things where cash isn't accepted is quite ridiculous.
Access to Visa & MasterCard isn't what I'd call easy and convenient.
Previously, my perception was that WeChat Pay isn't available for me because WeChat isn't allowed to operate payment services in Europe, thus tries to keep me outside the system.
However, things could be easier since it's prepaid.
Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China
#4Given that the Chinese government actively promotes tourism, the number of hoops a foreigner has to jump through to pay for things where cash isn't accepted is quite ridiculous.
Access to Visa & MasterCard isn't what I'd call easy and convenient. Previously, my perception was that WeChat Pay isn't available for me because WeChat isn't allowed to operate payment services in Europe, thus tries to keep me outside the system. However, things could be easier since it's prepaid.
OP here.
Foreign credit cards are almost never accepted in China. I've sometimes been able to use my non-Chinese Visa card in supermarkets, although even that has been rare and tedious. And hotels all take foreign credit cards, but that's clearly because so many foreigners want to use them to pay.
It's quite possible that WeChat is trying to avoid being regulated by non-Chinese authorities, and thus keeps foreigners out. They certainly (I'm guessing) don't want to have to deal with banking and privacy rules in other countries. So as you say, by keeping it restricted to prepaid usage, everyone wins.
The only thing I don't understand here is why they don't make it easier, more obvious, or more accessible to foreigners. The workarounds I describe have made my visits to China far easier over the last six months, and I hope that others will benefit, too!
Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China
#5Given that the Chinese government actively promotes tourism, the number of hoops a foreigner has to jump through to pay for things where cash isn't accepted is quite ridiculous.
Businesses can accept foreigner credit cards. But why would they, when foreigners are a tiny proportion of the population, and taking such cards probably costs them a fortune?
Someone just told me that the Shanghai hotel I stayed in for several days last week costs foreigners double the Chinese rate. Undoubtedly, part of that rate includes various taxes, and takes the payment margin into account.
Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
Access to Visa & MasterCard isn't what I'd call easy and convenient. Previously, my perception was that WeChat Pay isn't available for me because WeChat isn't allowed to operate payment services in Europe, thus tries to keep me outside the system. However, things could be easier since it's prepaid.
OP here. Foreign credit cards are almost never accepted in China. I've sometimes been able to use my non-Chinese Visa card in supermarkets, although even that has been rare and tedious. And hotels all take foreign credit cards, but that's clearly because so many foreigners want to use them to pay. It's quite possible that WeChat is trying to avoid being regulated by non-Chinese authorities, and thus keeps foreigners…
I absolutely agree with you. The point I did want to make is that access to other payment methods isn't really easy, either.
Reading your article was a joy for me an I think it will help many people.
Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China
#7Nice guide. I didn’t know it was possible without the Chinese phone number + Chinese bank account.
Getting a Chinese phone number and bank account was surprisingly painless for me. You prepay around 20-30$ for a phone number at 1rmb/500mb and the account is a simple form.
Then if you have a nice bank account with fee free international withdraws you can convert money without fee by going to the atm, withdrawing, then depositing. All in all I’d say it takes about 2-3 hours, though I’ve heard ymmv depending on what bank branch you try to set up your account.
Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China
#8Nice guide. I didn’t know it was possible without the Chinese phone number + Chinese bank account. Getting a Chinese phone number and bank account was surprisingly painless for me. You prepay around 20-30$ for a phone number at 1rmb/500mb and the account is a simple form. Then if you have a nice bank account with fee free international withdraws you can convert money without fee by going to the atm, withdrawing, then…
I seriously thought about getting a bank account and phone number. But I have a single-SIM phone, and really didn't feel like swapping the SIM in and out, depending on who I was calling. (Nor did I feel like having two phones with me.)
But yes, if I hadn't managed to get WeChat payments to work, I probably would instead have written a guide on getting a Chinese bank account!
Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China
#9For an official guide on how to activate WeChat Pay without a China mobile number, what payment sources (primarily debit or credit cards issued by a mainland Chinese bank) are accepted, and what identity documents are accepted (including non-Chinese passports), you can go to WeChat's official Help Center site in English here:
https://help.wechat.com/cgi-bin/newreadtemplate?t=help_cente...
Perhaps the official docs offer a more clear explanation.
Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China
#10For an official guide on how to activate WeChat Pay without a China mobile number, what payment sources (primarily debit or credit cards issued by a mainland Chinese bank) are accepted, and what identity documents are accepted (including non-Chinese passports), you can go to WeChat's official Help Center site in English here: https://help.wechat.com/cgi-bin/newreadtemplate?t=help_cente... Perhaps the official docs of…
Perhaps, but the official docs (following your link) explicitly says: "At the current time, "Wallet" is only available to users registered in mainland China, Hong Kong, South Africa and Malaysia."
In other words, the official line is that I shouldn't be able to use WeChat payments.
The whole point of my blog post is that this official line is wrong.