HONG KONG, June 28 Reuters Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings and Ant Group said that they would allow users to link international credit cards to their platforms, an issue that has long plagued foreign visitors as the countrys payment system has kept credit cards out for years.

Tencent, operator of the popular chat app WeChat and payment network WeChat Pay, said on Wednesday that WeChat users overseas can link credit cards issued by Visa Inc to their WeChat app from next month. Foreign tourists can then pay with WeChat when traveling in mainland China.

This comes after Mastercard announced last week that cardholders can link credit or debit cards to the Alipay digital wallet where they can finally pay like a local. Alipay is the mobile payment app owned by Ant.

Chinas mobile payment network became highly closedoff to overseas tourists since mobile apps became the predominant payment method in the country in the late 2010s, triggering a boom in ecommerce. Foreign visitors often find themselves unable to pay for things in China where many shops and restaurants now only accept mobile payment rather than credit cards or cash.

Prior to the easy card linkage change, foreigners in China typically needed to set up a Chinese bank account to access Tencents and Ants mobile payment networks.

Tencent and Ant had formed partnerships with Visa and Mastercard in 2019 to make foreign cards usable on their platforms. But as China closed its borders during the COVID19 pandemic and…