Alipay

Here is the thing. Some business in China use a "personal QR code" for receiving payments. It works great for Chinese people, because they can send money to another Chinese person, with no problem at all. But you, and me, as foreigners can't "send money to a Chinese person using Alipay or WeChat".

What does it mean? Essentially, you'll have a very good time in China for a couple of days, and suddenly, in a random, nice restaurant you won't be able to pay (of course, after having a delicious meal), no matter what. I added 3 credit cards to my Alipay/WeChat account (I'm really humble, but I'm talking about 30k euros limit) and couldn't pay a 44 yuan bill (4, 5 euros). It's nothing about daily limit, cumulative limit (today it's about 15000 yuan, a lot) and the like.

But wait, I could ride a bike, paid 200+ yuan for visiting the Wall, went to supermarkets, and so on. Why? I was lucky enough to find places that had a "business QR code". I.e., that QR code isn't bound to a human being, but to a business.

So, I don't know what to say. Better go for "real restaurants" and forget about the "cozy, famíliar, real cuisine" place. Generally speaking, small businesses.

Today I was 1 hour in a place trying to solve this problem. Nobody's fault, but at the end I could find someone that knew what was happening, and leaving some money that I had in the wallet (not yuans, my local currency, it means, Serbian dinars).

I come across a traveler moutn ago and she can't use alipay or WeChat pay. Which makes she hard to order online and use MRT easily 🧐

Hope this helps anyone who stumbles upon this; I had to learn the hard way T_T

I bought the discounted Disney+ Mobile plan 2 months ago (P119 instead of the P159 official price) through Alipay+ (in Gcash) and didn't realize it was gonna keep renewing. Here's how I managed to cancel it:

From GCash Homepage go to A+ Rewards (Alipay+) > Vouchers > Subscriptions, then cancel there.

There's also a YouTube video where the method they used was: A+ Rewards (Alipay+) > My Rewards > Orders, then cancel there.

"Vouchers" and "My Rewards" are on the same page anyway so, just check both pages. Hope this helps.

(NOTE: I don't know how this "Flair" thing on Reddit works but, since it's required to have one to post this for some reason, I just picked "Question" as the tag.)

Confirmed as title says you can still buy skins (your current balance is safe) but impossible to get balance without those 2 methods

Seems like BABA can't catch a break. The Ant valuation has dropped a lot ever since its IPO was scuttled last November. BABA has been in a downtrend since then

Beijing wants to break up Alipay, the 1bn plus-user superapp owned by Jack Ma’s Ant Group, and create a separate app for the company’s highly profitable loans business, in the most visible restructuring yet of the fintech giant.

Chinese regulators have already ordered Ant to separate the back end of its two lending businesses, Huabei, which is similar to a traditional credit card, and Jiebei, which makes small unsecured loans, from the rest of its financial offerings and bring in outside shareholders. Now officials want the two businesses to be split into an independent app as well.

The plan will also see Ant turn over the user data that underpins its lending decisions to a new credit scoring joint-venture which will be partly state-owned, according to two people familiar with the process.

“The government believes big tech’s monopoly power comes from their control of data,” said one person close to financial regulators in Beijing. “It wants to end that.”

The move may slow down Ant’s lending business, with the enormous growth of Huabei and Jiebei partly powering its planned IPO last year. The CreditTech unit, which includes the two units, overtook Ant’s main payment processing business for the first time in the first half of 2020, to account for 39 per cent of the group’s revenues.

Read the full Financial Times article here:

Hi all, I just came back from a 14-day trip in China/Hong Kong (3/15/2024 to 3/29/2024). I wanted to share my experiences with Alipay, WeChat Pay, 12306.cn (railway tickets) and other payment or booking related matters of this trip. I hope this post will be helpful for non-Chinese citizens who will travel to China soon (I had been lurking around and this is my 1st post, please go easy as I am just trying to provide some information through this post).

My itinerary- Flew directly from the US to Beijing for 4’ish days (19-hour flight with Hainnan due to a faster route through Russia but they had to stop in Seattle for ‘refueling’), then flew to Shanghai for 3’ish days, then flew to Guangzhou for 4’ish days, and took the high speed train to Hong Kong for a day’ish before direct-flying back to the US (15-hour flight with Cathay Pacific due to a 1-hour delay).

Payments to street vendors/smaller shops/restaurants - I would say 85%-90% of these shops accept both Alipay and WeChat Pay. I found about 10% of them would only accepted WeChat Pay, and I will provide more details below.

Payments to bigger restaurants/shops/hotel - I would say 50% of them accepted Visa/Mastercard (among other systems), and almost all of them would accept both Alipay and WeChat Pay too.

Mobile device with Internet access data - This is one of the essential parts. Without such a device, it is almost impossible to live a normal daily life, especially in non-Guangdong (southeastern China) areas where using cash or non-Chinese credit card is not as common (I chatted with a few non-Chinese foreigners, they said that it was very difficult for them to use cash only even in the Guangzhou area). I bought T-Mobile’s 15GB International Plan for $50. It worked somewhat well in Beijing and Shanghai (in most major North American and western European cities, I got 200+ Mbps download, in Beijing/Shanghai, I got maybe 30 Mbps), but once I arrived in Guangzhou, it came almost to a complete grind (at about 8 to 10 Mbps, if that, and coincidentally, I hit the 1st milestone of 5GB usage before I left Shanghai as I was backing up images to Google Photos). My travel mates also have T-Mobile and they did not hit the 5GB milestone and their connection speeds were a little faster at 20-30 Mbps when mine did not work. So I speculate that T-Mobile throttled my connection speed after 5GB of usage anyway, despite I paid extra for their International Plan. I had never experienced this in any other (limited number of) countries I visited.

Language barriers - I speak very little Mandarin but I can read + write both Traditional and Simplified Chinese and understand 25%-30% Mandarin when people speak/during announcements. I would say I had technically no issues communicating with my limited Mandarin, with body language, plus offline Google Translate. Most service oriented people in Beijing and Shanghai would feel understandable because they have millions of non-Chinese speaking visitors each year. I could even get into a small exchange with an older man who thought I would cut him off in a line at an airport (but he cut everyone else off before that).

Maps - Another essential piece. Google Maps did not work well for me, especially when translating street names, instead, I had used Amap or GaoDe Map. I downloaded its mobile app way in advance when I was still in the US, then I used it to search places I wanted to go in each city. Its cache/memory would stick, so when I was in China, even though when Internet connection was poor, I was able to pull up at least something, like parts of Guangzhou or a western suburb in Shanghai.

Alipay Tourcard - It did not work for me. I could never get the Tourcard to work (with Bank of Shanghai) because its app requires a local Chinese phone number (+86) for SMS/text verification. I had tried different combinations of the international code (+1) with my US based phone number, no luck.

Alipay/Swapsy combo - It worked great for me. If you are in the US, I would think this method shall work flawlessly. The Swapsy ID verification took about 12 hours to complete, it was fairly straightforward. I had exchanged/transferred (via Zelle) less than $100 USD as I used this a backup option, just in case if binding non-Chinese credit cards would not work (read below).

Alipay with non-Chinese credit cards - This worked great. I had narrowed down to using only 2 credit cards for this trip, Chase and Capital One (COF). I had put both Chase and COF into Alipay but I could never get COF to work (it kept declining). However, Chase worked in every single occasion, big (meals at restaurants, 1,000+ RMB) and small (subway/bus or small street vendors at 2-3 RMB). Among the hundreds of transactions, I would say it missed once (perhaps I did not scan the QR code at the correct angle), whether I was scanning the recipient’s QR code, or they scanned my QR code.

WeChat Pay with non-Chinese credit cards - This worked great. Given that COF did not work with Alipay, so I only attached Chase with WeChat Pay/Weixin Pay (once you have registered your non-Chinese credit card in ‘Me’, ‘Services’, and ‘Wallet’, it used Weixin Pay to process the transactions). Again, some vendors/stores would only accept WeChat Pay, but I had no issues paying them without any non-credit card balances associating with WeChat Pay.

Credit cards - I had contacted both Chase and COF ahead of this trip but they both claimed that I don’t need to flag with them as they will “keep monitoring for any fraudulent transactions”. I bumped into a few fellow North Americans along the way, most of their COF transactions were declined. Up to this point, it seems like COF is not as widely accepted as Chase when it comes verifying transactions in China through Alipay or WeChat Pay.

Booking tickets with 12306.cn/China Railway app - It did not work for me. Based on what I was told, at this point, it only allows mainland China’s, Hong Kong’s, Taiwan’s, and Macau’s Chinese citizens to book online/on its official app because again, its system requires a local Chinese phone number for SMS/text verification. I spent about 1.5 hours at the Guangzhou East Station trying to sort this out. For reference, I had already booked the tickets through ctrip.com (at a 30% premium, $145 USD for 3 tickets at the counter/its app vs $189 we paid to ctrip.com) before I flew out of the US. However, I still needed to get the ID verification part approved before I could board any China Railway trains anyway, so I went to that station 1 day in advance just to hammer this out. Despite yelling and screaming from people behind me in the line due to the long wait, the China Railway lady at the window had to call up 2 different managers and a technical support person, examining my phone numerous times (I had to log in like 9-10 times, while an angry Russian guy behind me was peeking over). They were able to get the ID verification part approved (by providing them with my US Passport and another form of ID, in which all of those entered information can be seen/read by everyone behind you as they have a big display at the window showing those private information) quickly, but they just could not do the SMS/text approval. I used my limited Mandarin and asked if they could override the SMS/text verification piece. They responded in both Mandarin and English by saying that they could do it on the spot once, but if I would need to book any more tickets (in which I did not need to), the chances are that the SMS/text verification issue would come up again until I had ordered tickets with China Railway more than 6x or something. At the end, they simply gave up. So my 12306.cn app still says that my phone number verification is not approved (red exclamation mark) but my ID documentation is approved (green check mark). I boarded the train on the next day without any issues.

Booking tickets at major tourist’s destinations - I could not buy tickets online at many official web site because again and again, most of them require SMS-text verifications with a local Chinese number. So I booked some of them on ctrip.com (at a premium, of course) and for some, I took my chances at the door. Perhaps this is a relatively low volume season, so there are plenty of available tickets that one could buy at the door of all major destinations I had visited, from Forbidden City in Beijing to Shanghai Financial Center, from temples in Shanghai’s western suburbs to Guangzhou/Canton Tower.

Transportation - In Beijing, I got their physical subway card (Yikatong Card) after landing as I could not get their SMS/text verification to work on the Alipay Transport app. So I had to carry the card everywhere with me (and before I flew out, I just asked for my money back upon returning the card at the airport station, and they gave me cash, so try not to have a large balance on the card). In Shanghai, I was able to use my Alipay Transport (but had to play with the NFC on/off a few times before it started working) to scan at the gates of the Maglev High Speed Train (from the Pudong airport to downtown, vice versa), subway lines and even buses (which has a separate virtual pass within Alipay Transport) without any issues. In Guangzhou, just like Shanghai, I could use Alipay Transport to get through subway gates but somehow it did not work on buses. In Hong Kong, I simply used Google Pay. Almost all subway stations would accept phone scans and many buses have similar acceptance.

Since some Chinese sellers don't have Paypal, I want to provide you a guide how you can do Alipay payments with the use of Remitly.

Remitly supports international credit cards, debit cards, SOFORT, Google Pay.

1. Register at Remitly.com or download the App in Playstore and register. If you want to do me a favor you can use my ref link and get 15€ discount for your firat payment >100€

2. Enter all your personal data (mobile number, address, birthday)

3. Select CNY currency and enter the amount the receiver should get.

4. Choose deliver method "Alipay" and the preferred payment method

5. Enter the Alipay ID of the Seller.

6. Enter First and Last Name of the seller.

7. Choose reason for sending "family support" DO NOT select buy goods. This will not work.

8. Confirm payment. After a few minutes you receive the confirmation that payment has been completed.

You old China hands probably already know this but as an occasional visitor I just discovered the AliPay public transport feature. I’d enabled it on my last trip when passing through Guangzhou so I could ride the ditie (Metro) just by swiping my phone. Just arrived in Kunming to find that the feature also automatically switches to work on the Kunming Metro system. Very handy for a swift and inexpensive transfer from airport to the station to get the train to Baoshan.

Hi there,

I'm visiting Shanghai next week and I'm looking for options for making payments while I'm there. I'm from the UK. I gather Alipay is what most people use but the process seems to vary. My partner is travelling with me and is Chinese with a Chinese bank account, does this help at all? I have a monzo account, which some have seem to suggest I can link to Alipay as payment since I didn't have luck with Lloyds.

Suggestions welcome, Thanks!

I tried using all my cards but none of them work. I can only use third party but their rates are so expensive

With the Chinese GP coming up right after the race in Japan, I thought I'd share some tips for navigating in and around China during the GP to ensure your trip is as smooth as Carlos operating his Ferrari.

Things in China can differ a bit than what you are used to, mainly regarding internet connection and payments. I visited the race in 2019 and some things have changed in Shanghai since then as I noticed while being there for a few hours while in transit to Australia for the AusGP. Below I have some tips for those going to the race, feel free to add some tips in the comments to help eachother out.

Internet

Internet access in China is governed by strict censorship laws, which restrict access to certain websites and online services. Platforms like Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube are typically blocked or heavily restricted.

To bypass these restrictions, using a VPN is recommended. There are various commercial options available, with ExpressVPN having a decent track record for working in China. However, NordVPN did not work for me last time.

Another useful tip is to acquire an eSIM and activate it before entering China. The Chinacom eSIM, available from providers like Airalo, doesn’t face the same internet restrictions, allowing access to Western media channels.

While many places in China offer free Wi-Fi access, logging in often requires your phone number and a verification message. However, personally, I have never received one of those messages so I was never able to connect.

Payment

In China, cash is still widely accepted, especially in smaller establishments and markets, but nearly every place you'll visit also accepts Alipay and WeChat Pay. Using a VISA or Mastercard credit card directly can be problematic as they’re not accepted everywhere. For example, Shanghai's metro ticket machines only accept UnionPay, Alipay, and WeChat Pay.

I highly recommend setting up Alipay before your trip to China. With Alipay, you can link your VISA or Mastercard credit card to your account, allowing you to make payments besides that you can also book taxi’s (Didi) using the app. Make sure you have a working internet connection when using Alipay otherwise it won’t work.

For getting cash, my advice is to withdraw some from the ATMs at the airport, as finding them elsewhere in the city can be challenging.

Transport

To get to the circuit in Shanghai, I highly recommend taking the metro. The Shanghai Metro is extensive, with stops everywhere, and it's inexpensive. There's a stop at the circuit that drops you off at the entrance. It's also great for getting around the city, although sometimes it's a bit of a walk from the metro entrance to your platform.

I don't have any experience with getting to the track by car or taxi. China doesn’t have Uber, but DiDi is widely used, which is basically the same as Uber or Grab. It's integrated into the Alipay app as well and works quite well.

Most of you will probably arrive at Shanghai Pudong International Airport. To get to the city, I 1000% recommend taking the Maglev train. Brings you to the city in a few minutes at 431km/h.

Apart from the race, Shanghai is a pretty cool city to be in so explore a bit and enjoy your time there!

(OT funfact: the Shanghai circuit is shaped as the '上 - Shang' in Shanghai 上海 )

Hello all,

I am travelling to Shanghai in a couple of days and am still trying to figure out my payment methods. I was originally going to use the Alipay TourPass but it is down until the 22nd of April, thus, I cannot use it.

If I link a foreign VISA card to Alipay does that allow me to complete payments? Or do I need to top up a TourCard to be able to used a foreign credit card?

I have also been recommended AlipayHK, but I am unable to sign up with a non-Hong Kong number. Is that a glitch in my App or an actual requirement?

Thank you for your help!

Hey there, for buff163 you need alipay to deposit and I have been trying to register for a tourcard (Passport registration just says "failed.") and sending money from wise directly to alipay and both didn't work. Does someone know any easy way (preferrably with low exchange rates) to charge alipay balance so you can deposit it on buff163?