Originally Posted by
Jamester
Hi fellas, just now diving into this whole UnionPay thing after an unpleasant trip to China with only my U.S. Visa card. (yikes!) I can go to a local branch here in the Bay Area to apply for the ICBC Union Pay in person, but with all the recent news that WeChat now accept "foreign credit cards" for its wallet (and subsequently plenty of expat websites out there debunking that theory), has anyone recently tried inputting your U.S. UnionPay card into your WeChat wallet?
And the way I understand it with the Chinese-based UP card, it is linked to a current account (so it acts like a debit card over there I suppose). Would there be an advantage to open a new checking account with the US based ICBC or is this UP card operate independently of a checking account?
I am currently running into a situation where my WeChat account needs to be validated (I use a China SIM card to register) and seems like I need to set up a wallet (and of course NONE of my credit cards work!)
Thanks so much in advance for any pointers!
I haven't tried inputting the card into a WeChat wallet. There was an example somewhere - I forget if it was here or another forum - of either WeChat or Alipay, but it required a friend "on the inside" to add the card manually.
The US ICBC UnionPay card is independent of the checking account, and acts like a credit card. There are some quirks with this card where it can act like a debit card if manufactured spending is your thing, but that's outside of the scope of this thread and best left as an exercise for the end user.
I signed up for a checking account when I applied for the card in branch at South San Francisco two years ago, but it's not required. Initially you couldn't do a direct bill pay from ICBC's website and had to push the payment from another checking account. However, the third party checking account functionality has been present since early 2017.