China’s central bank is making another push to slash barriers facing foreign visitors using the country’s mobile payment services, in the latest effort to revive the tourism market, reports Caixin. The People’s Bank of China has guided major payment platforms including Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings’s Tenpay—the operator of WeChat Pay—to increase the single transaction limit for foreign users to $5,000 from $1,000, according to deputy governor Zhang Qingsong at a Friday briefing.
The maximum annual mobile payment limit for foreigners would rise from $10,000 to $50,000, on a par with Chinese nationals, according to Zhang. Identity verification procedures will be simplified to make it easier for foreign nationals to link international bank cards with China’s mobile payment services, said Zhang.
The central bank also encouraged shops, hotels, tourist attractions and other service providers to offer diverse payment methods including cash, bankcard and mobile payment.