Hong Kong – TenPay Global, Tencent’s cross-border payment platform, and Mastercard have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore cross-border payment interoperability and agentic payments.
The proposed collaboration aims to expand payment options for international visitors to the Chinese mainland, including payments through familiar digital wallets and issuer apps at QR-enabled merchants. It is also intended to help merchants serve international customers.
Mastercard data showed that inbound spending in the Chinese mainland grew 51.3% year on year in the 12 months to June 2026. From January to August, transactions made with international digital wallets through Weixin Pay in the mainland increased 81.8% by number and 80.6% by value year on year.
Under the agreement, the companies will combine their capabilities in payment processing, currency conversion, risk management and fraud prevention. They will also work with digital wallet providers, financial institutions and payment service providers to broaden participation in cross-border QR payments.
TenPay Global and Mastercard also plan to expand their existing remittance collaboration through Mastercard Move, enabling more overseas senders to transfer money into the Weixin ecosystem. Mastercard Move supports transfers across more than 200 countries and territories and more than 150 currencies, with reach to nearly 17 billion endpoints.
The companies will explore further work on payment interoperability, wallet innovation, cross-border payment infrastructure, security and fraud prevention, including the potential use of Mastercard’s value-added services within the wider Weixin/WeChat ecosystem.
They will also examine how interoperability, trust and security could support agentic commerce. Areas under consideration include Mastercard Agent Pay, Mastercard Agent Connect and Virtual C-Suite, with the aim of supporting AI-enabled transactions for consumers and merchants.
