How To Set Up Wechat Pay

In this article, we will expect into:

What is WeChat Pay – for stop users click hither
What is WeChat Pay – for companies click here
How can foreigners utilise for WeChat Pay (for individual) click here
How can you change the bank card linked with WeChat Pay (for individual) click here
How to apply for WeChat Pay (for Chinese companies) click hither
How to create WeChat cantankerous-border payment business relationship (for overseas companies) click here
How to set-upward WeChat cross-border payment for Magento, Shopify and WooCommerce click here
3 case studies of WeChat cross-border payment click here
Long-term prospects for WeChat Pay

What is WeChat Pay?

WeChat pay is a payment solution completely integrated inside the social and messaging application of Tencent: WeChat. It appears in the "WeChat Wallet" section of the application.

Through the wallet section and the integrated browser of WeChat, users can perform a variety of transactions using WeChat Pay, including and not limited to:

Transfer money to friends (especially as "reddish envelopes" shared during Chinese festivals)
Perform transactions on eastward-commerce websites
Height up their mobile
Invest in wealth management funds
Pay for water and electricity bills
Order and pay for a cab
Purchase a train or flight ticket
Volume a night in a hotel
Purchase moving-picture show tickets
And much more…

WeChat Payment

These transactions are meant to be a future money-maker for Tencent. It is good to go on in heed that Tencent is very dissimilar from its Western competitor Facebook: while Facebook makes 95% of its revenue from advertising, the figure was only 17% for Tencent in 2022.

Tencent actually makes most of its coin through value-added services. And WeChat Pay volition pay a central role in this service strategy.

How exercise foreigners create WeChat Pay account (for the individual)?

Living in China without WeChat Pay or Alipay is like living without greenbacks or credit menu. Survey shows only 10% of users adopt to pay via credit carte or greenbacks over WeChat Pay or Alipay. So how can foreigners open up WeChat Pay account?

Requirement

WeChat account
Passport
A Chinese banking concern carte du jour
A phone that linked with your bank carte

Steps 1: find the WeChat Wallet "Cards" department

Become to your WeChat and click on Me/Wallet/Cards. This will take you to a section to add a Chinese depository financial institution card.

WeChat wallet

Note if you don't see Wallet in your WeChat, it is because yous downloaded the international version of WeChat. Here is a fox to meet the WeChat Wallet on the international version of WeChat.

You can click on Setting/Full general/Linguistic communication to alter the WeChat linguistic communication to Chinese.

This volition activate your WeChat Wallet. You tin then change your language back to English and WeChat Wallet should stay visible.

2change-langurage wechat pay

Stride 2: Add a depository financial institution bill of fare

Now you lot can add a credit or debit card to link with your WeChat Wallet.

You will need a Chinese bank card.

*Of import: make sure y'all utilise the exact proper noun you lot utilise that matches with the name linked with your bank card. The name field is also case sensitive.

Pace 3: done!

At present you accept successfully linked your bank carte du jour with WeChat! success WeChat payment

At present relish shopping 🙂

How do I change the banking concern that's linked with the WeChat Wallet (for individuals)?

Some people might link a friend's banking concern card with WeChat Wallet and later on wants to change it, you lot may bump into a lot of error messages if the two bank cards have different names. Hither is how you can alter your banking company card:

Y'all can get to Wallet/Card to delete the previous carte du jour
In the add a card page, click on the green information sign to change your name
Before you click on modify names, make certain your WeChat Wallet has a residuum of 0
Make sure your WeChat Pay business relationship is not linked with a 3rd party company for automatic payment (such equally Uber, Didi).
If yous run across an error message and are not sure what it means, information technology could possibly exist the WeChat mess upward the English translation. In this case, you should switch the language back to Chinese and see what it says.
Then you can proceed to the adding a banking concern card department (encounter the section above)

Change wechat payment card

What is WeChat Pay for companies?

Personal WeChat payment is just used for peer-to-peer transactions. Information technology cannot be continued with a company.

Company WeChat Pay account will settle the payment in a company's bank account. The near common manner you tin can employ a company's payment account is to connect it with your website, Apps or your WeChat shop.

Today, you can employ the company'southward WeChat Pay in the following 4 settings:

In-App web-based payment

This is the most common way to use WeChat payment. You tin embed it into your WeChat store. When users make a payment, they volition just demand to enter the half dozen-digit pin lawmaking or scan of a fingerprint. Below is an example of how users usually pay on a WeChat/mobile shop.

2. QR lawmaking payment

QR code payment is ordinarily used when your customers are shopping on a desktop website. The QR code will be automatically generated past the WeChat payment system. Your customers only demand to scan the QR code with WeChat or Alipay to brand the payment.

3. In-App Payment

You can integrate WeChat Pay or Alipay on your Apps. Having this popular payment option available for your users will increase the conversion on your Apps.

iv. Quick Pay

WeChat Quick Pay is the almost common way to accept payment in a concrete shop. The WeChat payment solution tin can be connected with your POS system. This way you lot can scan the WeChat payment QR lawmaking of the utilise. It'south a much faster payment solution than cash or credit carte. In this instance, users don't even demand to enter the 6-digital pin code to corroborate the payment.

5. Mini-program payments

Mini-program Payments are triggered if users try to purchase items or services online via a WeChat Mini-plan (an App built inside the WeChat ecosystem). They are similar to WeChat Web-based payment, although they necessitate a specific technical integration.

How to apply for WeChat Payment (as a company)?

There are two main cases when information technology comes to applying for WeChat Payment:

Local WeChat Payment: you lot already have a company registered in mainland China and tin can accept payments in RMB
Cross-edge WeChat Payment: Create a WeChat cantankerous-border payment account that connects with your overseas depository financial institution account and tin can settle in your local currency (Chinese customers volition still pay transactions in RMB)

If you don't take a visitor registered anywhere, so you won't be eligible.

Option ane: Create a WeChat payment account that connects with your Chinese company's banking company business relationship

If you already have a company registered in mainland People's republic of china, you will first have to register a local WeChat Official Account (Service business relationship – 服务号). Y'all can do and then on the official WeChat Official business relationship page:

http://mp.weixin.qq.com/

In society to create and verify your account, y'all will need the following documents and information:

Company registration number (企业注册号)
A scanned of your business license, with company stamp (执照扫描盖章)
Account operator name (must be a Chinese national with a WeChat Payment account)
Account operator's phone number:
Account operator'southward ID number and ID blazon
Official Account name (can only contain Chinese characters, numbers, letters with no space)
Official Business relationship short description
WeChat Official business relationship ID (users can apply this id to search for the account, the ID can't contain spaces)
Final three months of telephone nib of the account operator
Front and back photocopy of the account operator'southward photo ID
Office landline phone number
Company banking account
Banking company proper name
Bank address

When you apply, make sure to pick Service Account (服务号) every bit the blazon of account.

Once your official business relationship is scanned and verified, y'all will be able to employ to WeChat Payment using the bill of fare on the left-manus side of the account.

You will so have to follow a procedure similar to the account creation process in social club to get WeChat Payment enabled.

Tencent charges a committee of almost 0.6% on transactions fabricated through WeChat payment in China.

Option 2: WeChat cantankerous-border payment business relationship (connects to an overseas bank account)

For overseas business, yous can setup WeChat cantankerous-edge payment account. This account will permit your customers to pay in RMB using WeChat Pay, and the payment volition be able to settle in your overseas banking concern account.

Supported currencies

Currently, WeChat cross-border payment solution supports the post-obit currencies: USD, HKD, THB, JPY, KRW, AUD, NZD, SGD, EUR, GBP, CAD, RUB, DKK, SEK, CHF, NOK (updated on December 2022, Tencent will keep to add other currencies). If the currency of your country is not on this list, you lot can open up a multi-currency bank account to have payment.

How to employ for WeChat cross-border payment account?

You will have ii options to create a WeChat Cross-border Payment account.

Option 1: setup via payment amanuensis

You lot can apply through Tencent (parent company of WeChat) certified payment agencies and local fiscal institutions. These agencies will help you to transfer the payment overseas and settle in your home countries.

This is the most popular fashion to use for payment as oversea businesses. Around 90% of our clients choose this method.

Pros:

Faster to setup: usually, information technology takes ane-two weeks to prepare the payment account
More flexible refund option: unremarkably y'all will be able to refund the order made within the past month
More than payment options: most of the payment agencies also integrate with other payment solutions, such as Alipay, Matrimony Pay, Visa, Mastercard and etc. They will be a one-finish solution for you to receive payment via all popular payment methods from Chinese customers
Agency usually have lower settlement amount (ordinarily betwixt 0-$v,000)
WalktheChat'due south WeChat shop platform is integrated with most of the agencies' API. It ways y'all won't need an It team to integrate your store with the agency's payment API

Cons:

Agencies will charge a small premium on acme of the WeChat Pay rate. Although the charge per unit of agencies gets is too much lower. And then overall, the charge per unit might even be cheaper in some countries.

What are the transaction rate agencies' charges?

For Australian merchants, the charge per unit is usually betwixt ane.5-two%. For near countries, the rate is commonly between 2-3%. You can write to info@walkthechat.com and ask to be introduced to ane of the payment agencies for a better rate.

Which agency should I work with?

Depending on the land, you will have unlike agencies to cull from. Here is a listing of certified agency dictionary.

Below is a list of agencies WalktheChat integrated.

WeChat Pay Us: NihaoPay, Citcon
WeChat Pay Canada: OTT Pay
WeChat Pay Australia: RoyalPay
WeChat Pay New Zealand: LatiPay, ePayment
WeChat Pay Singapore: FomoPay
WeChat Pay Thailand: Ksher
WeChat Pay Europe: Adyen (partially integrated with WeChat), Swift Pass
WeChat Pay Hongkong: AllPay
Other: some agencies will exist able to gear up accounts for companies in other countries.

Contact info@walkthechat.com if you need further advice on picking the right WeChat Payment partner.

Note: When yous create a payment account via an agency, the payment volition go through the bureau's account. Make certain the agency is Tencent certified. If you lot are not sure, you tin contact WalktheChat (info@walkthechat.com) to understand your options.

Option 2: setup via payment directly with WeChat

Here are the pros and cons of setting upwardly a direct WeChat Pay account:

Pros:

You lot will be able to negotiate a better rate if your transaction volume is above $50,000 USD per month.
The payment will settle directly from Tencent's bank account to your company'south business relationship

Cons:

Just available for companies with large transactions
The setup time is normally around 2-4 months.
Refund feature is limited, yous will only exist able to refund the user if the incoming transaction on the mean solar day is above the refund corporeality
The minimal settlement amount is 5,000 USD

How to apply?

Yous tin can handle your application for WeChat cross-border payment on TenPay's website:

http://global.tenpay.com/

Click on the cocky-awarding menu.

There are several types of WeChat payment applications:

App Payment is meant for Android / iOS APP wanting to include WeChat as a payment option
WeChat Offline Payment is meant for brick-and-mortar stores wanting to add WeChat payment via QR codes
Official Account Payment is used in club to embed WeChat payment within your mobile website (this is the nearly common use-case)

Note that the application requests your "Official Business relationship APPID" which is a unique identifier for a WeChat Official Account. If you are unsure how to create an Official Account for your oversea business, feel free to achieve out to u.s.a..

In terms of fees being charges, at that place are ii primary constraints set by Tencent:

A 1-2% commission on all transactions
$five,000 USD settlement corporeality (which means the money will be transferred to your bank account each time you reach $5,000 USD of sales

These are very like to the terms from Alipay vs. WeChat Payment (cantankerous-border payment). You can run across a detailed comparison in the table below.

Cantankerous-border payment and WeChat Mini-Programs

Cross-border payments are possible with WeChat Mini-programs. Withal, they can exist limited to certain countries and currencies.

Each payment partner has different geographical and currency coverage. For more than data, please write to info@walkthechat.com

How to set-up WeChat Cross-border Payment on other due east-commerce platforms

Setting upward WeChat cross-border payments on a Magento website

There are several APP's on Magento Connect enabling you lot to ready-up WeChat payment on your website:

WeChat Payment Method
WeChat Payment (高级微信支付)
Wechat Payment / 微信支付
WeChat Cross-border Online Payment

However, these extensions take a few drawbacks:

Low popularity, almost of them with 0 reviews
Most of them integrate the native version of WeChat cross-border payments, which is hard to utilize for (most three months) and has some applied limitations (such equally the inability to keep with refunds after the twenty-four hours of the transaction)

In that location are local representatives of Tencent in various regions (Asia, Europe, U.Southward, Australia, New Zealand, etc.) who can assist yous prepare accounts faster and with more advanced features. Reach out to the states (info@walkthechat.com) for advice on finding the appropriate supplier in your case

Setting up WeChat cross-border payment with Shopify

It is unfortunately impossible to gear up-up WeChat cantankerous-border payment direct with Shopify. Shopify limits the number of payment methods that can be used, and as of March 2022, Shopify isn't on the list (although Alipay Global is).

The all-time solution, if you have a Shopify shop, is to utilize a tertiary-party WeChat store solution with an ability to import your store to WeChat, and host your WeChat store on a separate sub-domain (you can practise that with WalktheChat cantankerous-edge store architect)

Setting upwards WeChat cross-edge payment with WooCommerce

In that location is equally of now no plug-in for the integration of WeChat Cross-border Payment into WooCommerce. There is still a plugin enabling a local implementation of WeChat Payment (requires a local Chinese visitor registered in mainland China)

For a cross-edge implementation, feel gratuitous to reach out for communication.

Setting up WeChat cross-border payment for custom websites

Custom implementations are more complex as WeChat Cantankerous-border Payment requires more try every bit the WeChat payment API is complex and documentation exists only in Chinese (you lot can notice information technology here)

WalktheChat provides an SDK to simplify the integration of WeChat cross-edge payment. If you lot retrieve that could be useful, attain out via info@walkthechat.com

How well is WeChat Pay doing?

WeChat Pay is doing, in a couple of words: pretty practiced.

The part has been popularized by Tencent masterful marketing coup: enabling Chinese users to exchange money via digital red envelopes, a tradition during the Chinese New year's day festival. As a upshot of this strategy, every bit of today, the near pop use of WeChat Pay is all the same to transport carmine envelopes and exchange money with friends.

Compared to its competitor Alipay, WeChat Pay is yet more focused on smaller transaction amounts: but about 20% of WeChat Pay transactions exceed RMB 1,000

Most importantly, WeChat Pay is seeing an explosive growth: co-ordinate to a report past the consulting agency McKinsey pct of users having used the feature doubled betwixt 2022 and Q1 2022.

The report also showed that the sources of traffic driving to e-commerce buy via WeChat Pay were various: more or less evenly split between traffic coming from friends, from WeChat Public Accounts, from JingDong (Tencent has a 15% pale in JD) and from other applications.

Another key factor which influences adoption of WeChat Pay is the back up from online merchants. Many WeChat Official Accounts (the equivalent of Facebook Pages for Wechat) started linking their "blogs" with WeChat stores in order to generate sales from e-commerce.

The current average of WeChat accounts being linked with a WeChat store (among top accounts is around 25%). Of course these statistics vary depending on the industry. Accounts in the childcare, beauty and travel industries tend to have a higher penetration of WeChat shops (effectually 30%) while accounts discussing relationship-related topics take a much smaller number of eastward-commerce implementations.

Because WeChat e-commerce is frequently related with endorsement from Key Opinion Leaders (due to the social nature of the awarding), these WeChat store are a heavy driver for the widespread adoption of WeChat Pay.

These WeChat shops are, for the most part, created using third party SaaS platforms (such as Weidian, Youzan or WalktheChat). Such platforms are local equivalents of Shopify which enable to easily prepare a shop and create a link betwixt social and e-commerce.

The number of accounts having developed their own website is insufficiently modest, with but 24% of them having developed their ain customized WeChat store.

Why mobile payments like WeChat Pay and Alipay are a terrific marketplace

Commencement thing to understand is: payments are important. And "who will win the payment fight" might very well be a life-or-expiry question for Alibaba and Tencent.

To have a betoken of comparison: PayPal represents equally of today about 44% of Ebay'south revenues. Moreover, this proportion keeps growing over fourth dimension since 2002 (PayPal is now going to exist taken out off eBay in 2022, only that's another story)

payment-paypal

The reason is simple: e-commerce markets fight for lower and lower margins. In such a commoditised market, payment is the 1 role of the business concern where margins get (less) compressed.

Compared with Alipay: Alipay'southward revenues reached RMB thirteen.8 billion in 2022, bookkeeping for 29% of Alibaba's revenue. Moreover, Alipay'southward margin was about 30%, higher than PayPal'southward 24%.

The situation is therefore clear: payment is a major path for growth and there is still much room for expansion.

Determination:

Both for Tencent and for Alibaba, online payments will be a key source of revenue for the years to come. Online payments are withal a market place where monopolies tend to appear equally users don't like multiplying the number of services they use. For at least 1 of the players involved, getting online payments right might be a matter of life and expiry.