At the opening main forum of the 20th Financial Expo held on May 27, 2026, a revolution in the field of cross-border payments is quietly beginning.
Tencent joined hands with relevant departments such as the Shenzhen Local Financial Administration Bureau, the Shenzhen Branch of the People’s Bank of China, the Shenzhen Qianhai Administration Bureau, and PayPal World to jointly launch the “Scan when you come! Make it easier to pay in China: 2026 inbound payment convenience upgrade action” to comprehensively promote the facilitation of payments by international friends in China.
At the opening ceremony, Tencent Financial Technology Vice President Hong Danyi announced a major news: Tencent’s cross-border payment platform TenPay Global and PayPal World have achieved interconnection.
This means that PayPal users can make smooth purchases at WeChat payment merchants after coming to China, and the first phase will be open to American users.
At the same time, in response to the payment needs of tourists from APEC member economies in China, Tencent has further upgraded the payment experience of “foreign card binding” on WeChat Pay, expanded the payment guide language to 16 languages, and worked with Shenzhen’s ports, airports, business districts, and banks to set up offline consultation service desks to make payments in China more convenient for foreign tourists.
With the guidance of the Shenzhen Branch of the People’s Bank of China, the Shenzhen Taxation Bureau, and the support of tax refund agencies, Shenzhen’s tax refund ports have recently been comprehensively upgraded.
Hong Kong residents can receive departure tax refunds in seconds through their WeChat Hong Kong dollar wallet account. In the future, this service will be expanded from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to the whole country. It will also support overseas wallets from more APEC member economies, providing great convenience for overseas tourists.
Tencent actively participates in the construction of the “Cross-border QR Code Unified Gateway” and further opens the “outsourcing and internal use” service of WeChat payment through this gateway.
This cooperation with PayPal World allows PayPal users from all over the world to come to China. Whether they actively scan the code or present the payment code, they can spend at WeChat Pay merchants as long as they open their PayPal wallet.
The service will be open to PayPal users in the United States in the first phase, and other markets will also be included in phases.
Dong Ximiao, chief economist of China Merchants Union and deputy director of Shanghai Finance and Development Laboratory, said that this move is a landmark event in China’s cross-border payment interconnection in recent years.
The cross-border QR code unified gateway is a key infrastructure innovation that breaks down barriers to cross-border payment interoperability in China’s payment and clearing field.
In the past, cooperation between overseas wallets and domestic payment systems required one-by-one integration. The technology costs were high and standards were inconsistent, making it difficult to form a synergy.
The cross-border QR code unified gateway is led by the China Payment and Clearing Association under the guidance of the Central Bank. It supports domestic and foreign institutions to carry out cross-border payment cooperation through “one-point docking” and provides unified technical interfaces and transaction information transfer and distribution services.
The gateway has been put into trial operation at the end of July 2025.
As a core participant, WeChat Pay promotes interoperability and cooperation with more than 40 overseas wallet institutions around the world through its TenPay Global platform. PayPal’s access is a strong proof that the gateway system has moved from a technology pilot to a large-scale application. It also marks a substantial leap in the cross-border payment infrastructure from “interconnection” to “interoperability”.
The cooperation between Tencent and PayPal not only provides great convenience for international friends to come to China for consumption, but also injects new vitality into the development of cross-border payments in China, and is expected to promote the further development of cross-border payments on a global scale.
