Tencent launches TenPayGo, a payments app for foreign visitors to China

Tencent Holdings launched TenPayGo on Thursday, a mobile payments app aimed at foreign visitors to China, as the company seeks to capture the country's growing inbound tourism market ahead of the APEC summit in Shenzhen.

A standalone app built on WeChat Pay

TenPayGo was developed by Tencent's WeChat Pay team. According to the company's announcement, international travellers can use it to pay at tens of millions of shops, restaurants and attractions across the WeChat Pay network, linking their credit cards or home-country digital wallets to the app. The app supports seven international card networks, including Visa and Mastercard, as well as about 60 overseas digital wallets and Apple Pay. Starryblu, a wallet from Singapore, is among the first batch of partners.

Sign-up with an email, not a local phone number

TenPayGo was previously available in limited test versions on Apple's App Store and Google Play. Registration requires only an email address, a simpler onboarding process for overseas travellers: many apps in China ask users to sign up with a mainland phone number. At a launch event in Shenzhen, the company also said visitors will be able to activate a ride code for the city's buses and metro without a phone number or a transit card. The App Store listing says more local transport and lifestyle services will be rolled out gradually.

A payments race ahead of the APEC summit

The launch comes as Chinese authorities and tech companies work to make digital payments easier for arrivals, against the backdrop of expanded visa-free entry policies. According to WeChat Pay data, in the first eight months of the year the value and number of transactions made with overseas digital wallets in China rose 80.6 per cent and 81.8 per cent respectively, year on year. WeChat Pay and Ant Group's Alipay dominate China's QR code-based cashless payments, and both have courted foreign travellers by letting them bind international cards. Tencent is betting that a standalone app, which needs no WeChat account, will lower the barrier further before APEC leaders meet in Shenzhen.