Tencent and Visa signed a memorandum of understanding on October 29, 2026 to work on payments for travellers entering and leaving China at participating merchants on the Weixin Pay and Visa networks, through Tencent’s TenPay Global platform and Visa Pay. The agreement also covers more Visa Direct remittances from overseas senders into Weixin Pay and joint work on AI agent payments through Visa Intelligent Commerce, and the companies gave no launch dates or volumes.
Why it matters: The MoU comes weeks after the People’s Bank of China approved Visa to begin preparations for a domestic bank card clearing business, according to CNBC, so Visa is now preparing its own yuan card clearing and a direct link into Weixin Pay at the same time. The Visa Direct part extends an existing remittance arrangement, so more overseas senders could transfer money straight into Weixin Pay accounts, subject to Chinese regulatory and data rules that both companies cite in the announcement.
Source: Tencent, October 29, 2026; CNBC, October 29, 2026
Related: PBOC gives Visa preliminary approval to prepare yuan card clearing in China · China Fintech: Tencent Visa agreement links Weixin Pay with Visa Pay for travellers in and out of China · Asia Fintech: Tencent Visa MoU targets Weixin Pay travel payments, remittances and AI agent commerce
