Tencent and Visa sign memorandum to expand payments in China — CNBC

China's Tencent and U.S.-based Visa have signed a memorandum to expand cooperation in cross-border payments, money transfers and commerce using artificial intelligence. The companies plan to simplify payments for travelers entering or leaving China, CNBC reports.

Payments for travelers

Under the agreement, Tencent and Visa will explore the possibility of creating payment solutions that would allow travelers to pay participating merchants through the Weixin Pay and Visa networks. The implementation of such services will depend on meeting regulatory requirements.

The partners also intend to expand cooperation through Visa Direct, Visa's money transfer service. This is expected to make it easier for users outside China to send funds to the Weixin Pay ecosystem.

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Cooperation in AI

The agreement covers agentic commerce, a model of online shopping in which AI agents can help consumers search for, select and purchase goods or services. Dawson Tong, Tencent's senior executive vice president and CEO of its Cloud and Smart Industries Group, said the partnership is intended to combine Tencent's artificial intelligence capabilities with Visa's global network to improve cross-border payments.

Approval for Visa

The announcement was made after the People's Bank of China this month allowed Visa to begin preparations to establish a domestic bank card clearing business. This brings the company closer to entering China's domestic payments market after more than four decades of operating in the country.

Tencent and Visa have cooperated since at least 2019. At that time, Visa said it planned to enable international cardholders to make payments through WeChat Pay in China. Separately, Citi said last week that it had received approval from China's securities regulator to establish a wholly owned securities operations company, Citigroup Securities (China), in Shanghai.