China-based Tencent and US-based Visa announced the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in October 2026. The agreement sets out a framework for collaboration in four areas: cross-border payments, agentic commerce, enterprise AI, and support for businesses expanding internationally. It combines Tencent’s payment solutions, digital platforms, and technology capabilities with Visa’s global network, and cross-border money movement services.
Cross-border payments and remittances
The agreement builds on existing work between the two companies serving international visitors to China. The partners aim to simplify cross-border payments for inbound and outbound travellers through TenPay Global, Tencent’s cross-border payment platform, and Visa Pay. For travellers to and from China, the focus will be on developing solutions that enable cross-border payments at participating merchants on the Weixin Pay and Visa networks, in line with applicable regulatory requirements.
Remittances form a second strand of the payments work. Tencent and Visa plan to deepen their cooperation through Visa Direct, with the aim of allowing more overseas senders to transfer funds into the Weixin Pay ecosystem.
Forest Lin, Corporate Vice President of Tencent and Head of Tencent Financial Technology, linked the expanded cooperation to the continued growth of two-way travel and commerce between China and the rest of the world. The official also said that the partnership is expected to deepen cross-border payment connectivity.
The partnership also extends an existing relationship in gaming. Midas, Tencent’s international payments platform, and Visa have cooperated over several years in joint marketing, global payments, and money movement, and risk management. The cooperation now covers Tencent’s overseas AI businesses as well, with a focus on optimising AI payment experiences and exploring agentic payment opportunities.
Agentic commerce and enterprise AI
A substantial part of the MoU concerns AI-driven commerce. The companies will explore how Visa Intelligent Commerce could support consumer-controlled experiences in which AI agents help eligible users discover, select and purchase goods or services. They also plan to collaborate on developer-agent payment experiences and emerging AI-native commerce models.
According to Tencent, the work will examine how Tencent Cloud’s AI and agent capabilities could complement Visa’s global network. Elaine Chang, Group General Manager, Greater China, Visa, said that connected digital ecosystems and AI-powered experiences will shape the next phase of commerce. The official added that trust and consumer control remain central to Visa’s approach.
Both companies frame the agentic work as subject to applicable regulatory, data-governance, and security requirements. The same conditions apply to the cross-border payment initiatives, indicating that progress across the workstreams will depend on regulatory alignment as well as technical integration, particularly where payment flows span China’s domestic wallet ecosystem and international card networks.
Taken together, the MoU links three things: Tencent’s consumer-facing payment infrastructure, its cloud and AI capabilities, and Visa’s global network and remittance rails. Its scope extends from travel payments and remittances to developer tooling for AI agents.
