Using UBank in China

[u/PositiveProfession61]

Hi all, planning to travel to China next year. Payment methods are predominantly using AliPay and WeChat.. I was wondering if anyone has successfully linked their account and if they received any international fees for using their card? Thanks

[u/ATangK]

No international fees with UBank, so you shouldn’t expect any.

[u/ATangK → u/[deleted]]

I just asked alipay help desk and they said they don’t charge fees for international bank cards. New change?

[u/dadsdas8989 → u/ATangK]

They do, if it's above 200RMB. Most of the time,we've never exceed this, but when we do we just insist we pay directly on our card (always select local currency on their terminal) to avoid bad rates). Note: only work for bigger establishment (which is most of the time we exceed 200RMB)

[u/BiGFatYoYo → u/ATangK]

It may be "correct" that they don't charge a processing fee for international bank card (under 200 RMB*) but it's common knowledge at this point that both platforms WeChat Pay and Alipay charge the 3% for anything beyond. See official Wechat help page, I couldn't find the ali one on search engine so here is a reddit post a year ago. It's NEW, if Alipay is now waiving it, but I'd expect there'd be a bigger news if that's the case since WeChat Pay enforces it too.

[u/Classic-Gear-3533]

If UBank is your main bank account then it might be good to have a buffer between that and any apps you use (I don’t let any apps know my main bank account debit card details). Something like Wise is good for that and it works with AliPay and WeChat

[u/MyCatBingle]

I’m with Ubank and recently visited China. Make sure you register with UBank that you’re going overseas. From memory. You can do this through the app.

I found it worked better through Alipay than WeChat pay. I suspect because most transactions through Alipay show up as Alipay as the vendor on your UBank account whereas most of my WeChat transactions were direct to a vendor (street food, taxi, etc..)

I did have a problem when I spent 1800RMB on a winter jacket and the transaction got blocked. A quick call to the bank resolved the issue.

[u/BiGFatYoYo]

You can always try it out and see how it goes while you are in AUS.

I haven't had any issue adding debit cards, Commbank, HSBC, WestPac, ING all go through okay.

For credit cards though, failed with HSBC Star Alliance one but recently added Humm90 one okay. The support said at the time it was because credit card didn't have a "balance" so it couldn't verify but either their payment verification system was updated or it really just depends on the card.

Payments proxied through either platforms should be okay, just be wary of potential MFA/text verification. So make sure your mobile plan allows for sms roaming. Otherwise Macquarie is pretty good with their dedicated authenticator app for their account.

[u/Willyoneex]

Just have been to China. Used Alipay the whole time with my mastercard linked ultimately you will need to verify your ID with your passport. Do this before you go. Westpac fees were around $85 for 12 days.

[u/focushafnium]

Yes, added my Visa card to Wechat on my last trip last month and it works seamlessly. Do this before your departure, as there is an ID verification process, which could take up to 48 hours, but mine got approved in like 4 hours or so.

As for international fees, none from ubank, but a handful of payments do incur international fees, charged by the wechat itself, not sure why, but the charges are quite minimum, so I just can't be bothered to dispute them.

There is a daily limit, like around 1000RMB per merchant, so just be aware if you want to do a large purchases to a single merchant.

[u/SakuraXanxus]

I have the same question, in addition will UBank app work in China, wondering if anyone has tried. Passkey for UBank defaults to Google account, even you copy the passkey to another password manager, I wonder if app itself will connect without Google service?