Going Cashless in China for Tourists

One of the common angst about travelling to China is the lack of access to their ubiquitous payment options — Weixin Pay and Alipay. Over the years, cashless payments are gradually replacing cash in China. To use Weixin Pay or Alipay, you must be a resident in China, have a local bank account, and a local mobile number before you can use the Apps to scan merchants’ QR codes for payment.

This changed in July 2023 because of the Hangzhou Asian Games. China’s most dominant payment platforms announced foreign travellers can now link their credit card details for payment. Finally!

In Singapore, OCBC and Changi Pay also announced cross-border payments through Alipay+ (to only Alipay+ merchants) from Sep 2023. These new payment options bypass the need to download other apps for payment. But are they good?

We visited Shenzhen and Hong Kong in Oct 2023 and here is our experience trying to go cashless in China using WeChat Pay (aka Weixin Pay), Alipay (not AlipayHK) and OCBC Digital App. We didn’t try using Changi Pay as it required us to open a Liquid Account in Changi Pay app 😅.

Can We Still Use Cash In China?

Short answer — Yes. Cash is still legal tender and merchants are not allowed to reject cash payments. BUT some vendors may not have change if you are using big notes (biggest note is CNY100), even though we didn’t encounter any vendor who didn’t have the right change. We suspect this might be challenging for smaller vendors or food stalls. Add to the myriad of apps that reside in these “Super Apps” that don’t accept cash payment, ordering bubble tea or hailing a ride on DiDi is gonna need us to go cashless. Almost all F&B uses QR code to place orders.

Nonetheless, it is sensible to carry CNY (yuan) cash at hand. We experienced some cases where cashless payments didn’t go through and we needed to use cash.

Can We Avoid Using these Super Apps?

These Apps are not necessary if you can live with the inconvenience.

For metro and bus transport in Shenzhen, we used Alipay and it worked without a glitch. It required online registration with our passport details, and was approved immediately. Without these Apps, you could buy single tickets at the ticket vending machine, and will need exact change when taking the bus. As mentioned, getting back exact change might be a challenge for small vendors. Most food stalls allow us to order by scanning a QR code using either WeChat or Alipay. You cannot access them using a normal web browser or your own QR code scanner.

These conveniences add up to a much better travel experience, and we planned to delete as much of our details as possible from these platforms before uninstalling the Apps when we return home.

Using Super Apps, other Apps can be accessed as “mini-programs” (hence the term Super App). Popular apps like Didi, Taobao, Metro, Hotels, F&B apps are all access from the main page of these apps or via a QR code scan. You can also add any App shortcuts to your homescreen

Setting Up Before You Travel

1. Make sure to download the Apps (available in Google Play Store and Apple App Store) and add your credit cards at least a day before you leave your country. You will need access to your mobile number for SMS OTP to create an account and add your credit card.

2. The Apps will require you to upload a copy of your Passport for ID verification, and may take at least a day to be approved. We chose Alipay as our primary mode as we used it with Tmall payments previously. We encourage downloading WeChat as a backup, in case Alipay isn’t working. You can also use WeChat to call or message locals if you aren’t using the payment feature.

3. Not all credit cards are accepted. Both Apps accept Visa, Mastercard, Diners Club, and Discover. It seems only Weixin Pay accepts JCB? Even though there are reports of linked cards not working, both our Mastercard and our Wise (Visa) virtual card worked well. In Alipay, there was no way to set default payment card, and our transport payment got deducted from our MasterCard and there was no way for us to change that to Wise. So it is probably best to add only one credit card.

4. Once the cards are added, you can scan the merchant’s QR code using using the “Scan” function for payment. In some instances, merchants scan your app’s QR code via “Pay/Receive” for payment.

5. You will need internet access to use the Apps for payment. So make sure you have a decent SIM or eSIM with data for your trip.

Note: Each of the Apps took up almost 1GB of space (including app, user and cache data) in our phones. User data alone was almost 500MB and we have no idea why so much storage was needed. So make sure there is sufficient storage on your phone before you install.

Adding Credit Card to Weixin Pay and Alipay

There are English language options in both Apps, but some pages might be served in Chinese, causing some confusion. Here is how you can add your bank credit card in Weixin Pay.

Here is how to start setting up Alipay for use in Mainland China.

Both Apps will ask you to set a 6-digit payment PIN that they may ask for when making payments.

The spending limits on Weixin Pay are:

• 6,000 yuan per single transaction (~S$1,100)

• 50,000 yuan (cumulative) per month (~S$9,300)

• 65,000 yuan (cumulative) per year (~S$11,200)

For Weixin Pay, transaction fees are waived for payments under 200 yuan (around S$37), and transactions above 200 yuan will have a 3% fee. Exchange rates are based on the rates of your credit card and issuing bank.

We couldn’t find any details of spending limits for using Alipay. Alipay also charges a 3% fee for transactions above 200 yuan.

We are aware of Alipay’s TourCard option, but didn’t explore using it because the 5% service charge is comparatively higher.

How is Our Experience Using the Apps? Which App is Better?

WeChat and Alipay QR codes are everywhere. Payment is as simple as scanning the merchant’s QR code using either App (not your phone’s QR code scanner), entering the amount payable, choose which credit card to charge to, and press confirm.

There are merchants with payment terminals which scan your QR code instead of you scanning their QR code. The merchant will enter the amount payable before scanning your QR code, and you will only need to approve the transaction in your App.

We were unable to use Alipay to make payment at a local food stall. In the screenshot below, we could not select either credit card for payment. When we clicked on “Learn More”, it appeared that credit cards cannot be used for “peer transfer”. There is a difference between “payment” and “peer transfer”, and this food stall vendor only had “peer transfer” enabled.

We were then able to scan the food stall vendor’s Weixin Pay QR code and pay using our Wise card. We had no idea why it worked for the vendor’s Weixin Pay. Generally, we used Alipay in Shenzhen and only used Weixin Pay when we faced issues.

We also tried using OCBC Digital App for payment. After scanning the Alipay QR code using the OCBC Digital App, the app will inform us that we will be using Alipay+ for payment and we then key in the amount payable. You should be able to use this method if Alipay already works with the merchant. The amount is deduction directly from your OCBC bank account, not your OCBC credit card.

Below is a screenshot of the first payment we made using the method. You can see the amount in SGD that will be deducted from our OCBC account, the exchange rate used, and the daily limit remaining.

At the same time, we checked the equivalent SGD amount in Wise for 119 yuan, and it was S$22.55 including Wise fees vs S$22.73 that OCBC deducts. It is safe to say Wise overall rate is more attractive here.

Other Things to Note

There are reports on reddit of the Apps asking for CVV code for verification or their bank blocking “suspicious” transactions that are actually legit. So make sure to add more than 1 credit card and that you have your card details on hand (we just take a picture of it). We did not face this CVV verification during our use.

In the rare case there is a complete failure on your app payments, you might want to ask your hotel concierge for help. Some may be able to help you transfer CNY to the e-wallet of your Super Apps so you can use them for payments. Also carry some amount of yuan with you as backup. Wise allows us free ATM withdrawals worldwide up to S$350 per month.

Going Cashless in Hong Kong

Can we use Alipay and Weixin Pay in Hong Kong? We didn’t get Alipay to work in Hong Kong, this function seemed to be for Mainland Chinese users only. And there are more HK merchants and vendors using AlipayHK than Alipay or Weixin Pay. When we downloaded and tried to register for AlipayHK, only a HK mobile number was accepted. We didn’t try extensively to solve for AlipayHK as there were other payment methods available.

Most merchants can accept the usual Cash, Mastercard, Visa, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Octopus Card (八达通卡). Small vendors tend to favour payment using Octopus Card. Since we already bought (loaned) Octopus Cards for transport purposes, we ended up topping up our Octopus Card using cash. We then got a refund of the leftover value in our Octopus Card on our last day, with a handling fee of HK$11. The refund can be done at any MTR Customer Service Centre.

There was a food place we went to which only accepts AlipayHK or HK$, and we couldn’t get our Alipay or OCBC Digital App to work there. We had to pay using HK$ eventually. Lesson Learnt — keep some HK$ on hand.

Final Thoughts

We had some fear of not being able to pay for stuff and were unfamiliar with these Apps when we booked our tickets in April 2023 for Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Fortunately, Weixin Pay and Alipay opened up in July 2023 for foreign credit cards to be added, though the 3% fee for payments above 200 yuan is quite hefty. We are glad that cash is still an acceptable form of payment in both China and Hong Kong.

Hope you found this post and our experience useful. If you are planning your first post-Covid trip to Shenzhen and Hong Kong, do check out our itinerary and stuff to eat on our blog!