Why Cross-Border Payments to China Have Long Been a Friction Point
For years, businesses and individuals sending money into Chinese Mainland have navigated a labyrinth of intermediaries, delayed settlement windows, and opaque fee structures. Whether disbursing contractor payments, transferring creator earnings, or supporting family members abroad, the process has remained stubbornly analog in a digital-first economy. The core challenge: legacy payment rails were never designed for the velocity and transparency that modern commerce demands.
Chinese Mainland represents one of the world’s largest remittance destinations, yet access to its payment infrastructure has traditionally required fragmented partnerships and inconsistent delivery timelines. For platforms, marketplaces, and employers operating across borders, this friction translates into operational complexity, customer dissatisfaction, and lost revenue opportunities.
A New Cross-Border Corridor Built for Scale and Speed
At Web Summit Qatar, Visa and UnionPay International announced a strategic agreement designed to eliminate these barriers. By connecting Visa Direct’s global money movement network to UnionPay International’s MoneyExpress platform, the partnership will enable real-time cross-border transfers to more than 95 percent of UnionPay International debit cardholders in Chinese Mainland through a single integration point.
This infrastructure advancement matters because it collapses what was once a multi-day settlement process into near-instantaneous fund availability. Clients leveraging Visa Direct will gain the ability to push cross-border remittances and business-to-consumer payouts directly to recipient cards without navigating separate bilateral agreements or proprietary gateway solutions.
Operational Simplicity Through Network Interoperability
The technical architecture underpinning this partnership prioritizes interoperability. Rather than requiring businesses to build custom connections for each regional payment network, Visa Direct serves as a universal adapter. A single API connection now unlocks access to billions of UnionPay cards across Chinese Mainland, reducing integration overhead and accelerating time-to-market for new cross-border payment use cases.
Use Cases That Reflect How Global Commerce Actually Works
The expanded network will support a diverse range of cross-border transactions that mirror the realities of today’s borderless economy: freelancer payouts for gig platforms, contractor disbursements for distributed workforces, insurance claim reimbursements, and family remittances. These aren’t hypothetical scenarios—they represent daily workflows for millions of users who currently face unnecessary delays and unpredictable costs.
“Global business now moves at internet speed, but money hasn’t always kept pace,” said Vira Platonova, Global Head of Visa Direct. “By expanding Visa Direct’s reach through UnionPay International, we’re shrinking the world again—not through tests or theory, but through real, critical infrastructure operating at massive scale, speed and reliability.”
What This Means for Payment Ecosystem Participants
For financial institutions, fintech platforms, and enterprise treasury teams, this partnership represents a material shift in cross-border payment economics. The ability to route payments through established card networks reduces correspondent banking dependencies, lowers foreign exchange margin leakage, and provides transparent end-to-end tracking.
Larry Wang, CEO of UnionPay International, emphasized the strategic alignment: “This cooperation with Visa represents a precise alignment of the two sides’ strengths and is also an active response to the digitalization and convenience trends in global cross-border remittances.”
The expanded Visa Direct connection to UnionPay International is expected to launch in the first half of 2026, giving ecosystem participants time to evaluate integration strategies and prepare for commercial deployment. As payment infrastructure increasingly becomes a competitive differentiator rather than back-office plumbing, partnerships that combine reach, reliability, and regulatory compliance will define market leadership in cross-border money movement.
About Visa Inc.
Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, sellers, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.com.
