BEIJING — Chinese digital payment platform WeChat Pay has announced that users can now make payments in five countries — South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore — by scanning local QR codes.

This means that in these countries, users no longer need to search for WeChat QR codes. Instead, they can use WeChat Pay to scan QR codes issued by local payment platforms, just as local users do.

The integration is a fully compliant and comprehensive interoperability between WeChat Pay and local payment infrastructures, rather than a series of individual merchant deals, said a WeChat Pay official, adding that tourists visiting these countries no longer need to download local apps or manually exchange currency.

Border authorities handled 185 million cross-border trips from January to March, up 13.5 percent year-on-year, said the National Immigration Administration. The continued boom in outbound and inbound tourism has brought more demand and opportunities for cross-border payments.

WeChat Pay's cross-border service now covers 78 countries and regions and supports 36 currencies. Alipay+, the global e-wallet gateway by Ant International, connects over 40 e-wallets worldwide and works with over 10 national QR code networks, covering over 150 million merchants and 1.8 billion consumer accounts across over 100 markets.

China has also eased inbound payments by allowing overseas bank cards to be linked to Alipay or WeChat Pay for spending at domestic merchants, and enabling overseas e-wallets to be used in China through partnerships with domestic payment institutions. In 2025, more than 10 million inbound tourists used such services, driving a year-on-year consumption increase of over 100 percent.

The People's Bank of China — the country's central bank — said in January it would accelerate the development of a cross-border payment system denominated in yuan this year and promote diversified, multilevel cross-border payment connectivity.

Experts said these measures facilitate smoother payments and support the transformation of China's payment industry from large to strong, while also offering Chinese solutions for enhancing regional payment interconnectivity to a global level.

Xinhua - China Daily