Something to keep an eye on...
Part 1: Discover, MC, and Visa have partnered with Alibaba's Ant Financial's Alipay to allow foreigners to use their cards to top up Alipay's prepaid card (minimum 100 yuan, maximum balance 2000 yuan).
Part 2: MC, Visa, Discover, have partnered with Tencent's WeChat to directly link foreigner's cards to WeChat Pay digital wallet app for a (current trial) limited number of services.
Previously only Chinese bank cards/services could be used.
Note: the past year has seen over 30 million foreign visitors spend more than 70 billion USD.
If this initial trial proves successful I can (1) see it use case broadened within China and (2) a sooner rather than later Chinese digital payment foray into the wider world, which is far behind in such offerings. And of which Discover, MC, and Visa are apparently well aware...
