Mobile pay limits raised for visitors

Measures ease linking of bank cards and streamlining ID authentication

China announced on Friday that it will quintuple the transaction limit for foreigners' mobile payments as the country enhances efforts to address payment challenges faced by international visitors.

Zhang Qingsong, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, said it will guide major payment institutions like Alipay to raise the single transaction limit of mobile payment for foreigners in China from $1,000 to $5,000 and lift the annual cumulative transaction limit from $10,000 to $50,000.

Also to facilitate foreigners' mobile payments in China, Zhang said at a news conference on Friday that the central bank will support payment institutions to enable foreign users to more efficiently link their mobile payment accounts with foreign bank cards and streamline identity authentication procedures.