Mastercard works with Tencent and Ant Financial to enable new payments choices across China for international visitors

Mastercard today announced it is working with Tencent and Ant Financial, China’s two leading fintech companies, to expand choices and empower international travelers with Mastercard cards to pay via WeChat Pay and Alipay in China.

This is to provide travelers, holding 2.6 billion Mastercard cards around the world, with the ability to make simple and smart payments anytime, anywhere in China, with a particular focus on solving for key tourist pain points such as paying for high-speed train and other tourism-related tickets, taxi rides, and groceries without the burden of needing to carry or use cash.

This collaboration with Tencent and Ant Financial is another key milestone towards achieving our “a world beyond cash” vision and attests to our long-term commitment to helping China boost inbound tourism and being an active partner in helping domestically establish an international, interoperable and highly advanced payments ecosystem.

According to the recently released Mastercard Global Destinations Index 2019, besides retaining its position as the top origin market for travelers globally, China is also growing as an important destination market. 41 out of the 161 most popular destinations in Asia Pacific are located in China, attesting to the growing volume of international tourists with their eyes set on visiting China.