Visa has partnered with Tencent Financial Technology to provide remittance services for Chinese messaging platform Weixin.

The agreement will enable around one billion Weixin app users to receive remittance into their digital wallets using the Visa Direct network.

Tencent claims the move will speed up the adoption of digital wallets in China as they do not require customers to share account or card details.

The partnership builds on a collaboration between Thunes and TerraPay, who also use the Visa network and have increased its reach to over 8.5 billion endpoints including over three billion accounts and more than 2.5 billion digital wallets.

Commenting on the news Shirley Yu, group general manager at Visa Greater China, said that digital wallets were crucial for financial inclusion and could reach people who might not have access to traditional banking services.

“In 2021, cross-border transfers sent and received via digital wallets grew by 48 per cent, reaching US$16 billion,” she said. “Some of the world’s largest inbound remittance markets in the Asia Pacific region – including Greater China, India, the Philippines and Bangladesh - have the highest penetration of digital wallets, making wallets a critical receiving endpoint for cross-border remittance.”

---