Apple Expands Cross-Border Apple Pay Support in China

Apple Pay is the best and Mainland China will love it. Anyone not using it is missing out. It’s super fast checkout and the transaction pops up immediately in your Apple Wallet all with Apple Walled Garden security. Set it up and try it you will love it.

Not so sure about that. From my travels in China it seems that most businesses now only want (are only allowed?) to support WeChat as a payment tool. In some places you can't even pay with a debit or credit card - only WeChat. The cynical (and possibly not wrong) would say that this is so that the authorities can get a look at what their population is doing with their money. WeChat will, I'm sure, claim complete independence from the state. Go figure.

It’s crazy. It’s as if US merchants would want to get paid only through Facebook or something.

But if anything it’s their version of Zelle and I’ve seen plenty of small businesses do that here state side including my barber. It’s because it’s pretty much cash.

That's pretty much how Venmo or Zelle works. Pretty anti-consumer since customer has to bring out the app, scan the QR code, enter amount and then hit send, wait for confirmation. That vs just double press power button to bring up the payment then tap.
I avoid any business that wants Zelle/Venmo.

They want Zelle or Venmo for the same reason they would want cash. It’s “under the table” or they just don’t want to pay processing fees.

Apple Pay is the best and Mainland China will love it. Anyone not using it is missing out. It’s super fast checkout and the transaction pops up immediately in your Apple Wallet all with Apple Walled Garden security. Set it up and try it you will love it.

This is for Chinese people travelling abroad.

In China everybody uses AliPay or WeChat, for EVERYTHING. Even paying street vendors, the implementation is easier since it only needs a QR code, you don’t need a point of sale device.

Good to know about this. However still waiting for Apple Pay to be available in my country.

Having visited Shanghai a couple of days ago, I can say that not being able to pay for things is a real problem as a tourist. In many countries you can stumble through a language barrier by pointing and then handing over cash or tapping a card, but when you have to navigate an app to buy something and translation simply doesn't work (this happened!) there's just no way to proceed.

The metro in Shanghai takes foreign credit cards, and that makes things much easier.

For anyone who does travel to China, download Alipay before you go and link a foreign credit card — it does work, and it's not too painful, but if translation fails... yikes.