The agreement between the two companies is designed to meld Tencent’s payment solutions, digital platforms and technology capabilities with Visa’s network and cross-border money movement offerings, Tencent said in a Thursday (Oct. 29) news release.
“As two-way travel and commerce between China and the rest of the world continue to grow, we are pleased to build on our existing partnership with Visa to deepen cross-border payment connectivity and explore new possibilities in AI-powered agentic payments,” said Forest Lin, corporate vice president of Tencent and head of the company’s financial technology unit.
The release said the effort builds on the company’s existing partnership aimed at international visitors to China, with the goal of using Visa Pay and Tencent’s cross-border payment platform TenPay Global to make cross-border payments easier for both inbound and outbound travelers.
The companies will also explore “next-generation agentic payments,” including how Visa Intelligent Commerce might support experiences where artificial intelligence agents help shoppers find and purchase goods or services, along with collaborations involving developer-agent payment experiences and new AI-native commerce models.
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“The next chapter of commerce will be shaped by increasingly connected digital ecosystems and new AI-powered experiences,” said Elaine Chang, Visa’s group general manager for greater China.
“Our partnership with Tencent gives us an opportunity to help connect those experiences to Visa’s global network, opening more ways for consumers to pay and businesses to participate in global commerce, with trust and consumer control at the heart of how we innovate.”
The announcement comes two weeks after Visa said it had obtained permission to bring its card business to China. The company said the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) had approved its “Application to Prepare,” which permits Visa to start work on setting up a domestic bankcard clearing operation in China.
The company described the approval as a critical milestone toward Visa’s entrance into China’s domestic payments market.
Meanwhile, PYMNTS worked with Visa on the “Global Digital Shopping Index: UAE Playbook,” which examined the popularity of agentic commerce in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The research found that 72% of the surveyed UAE consumers had used AI during their most recent purchase, compared with 53% of Brazilian shoppers and 46% of U.S. consumers.
“For merchants, a group that large can affect decisions about how products are presented, how customers reach checkout and what happens when software begins acting on their behalf,” PYMNTS wrote last week.
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