Citi and Bank of Shanghai launched a payments solution on Bank of Shanghai’s TourCard. The TourCard aims to provide international travellers a straightforward, cost-efficient and more streamlined Chinese yuan renminbi (CNY) payment journey while travelling in China.

The payment service is facilitated by Citi’s USD Clearing solution and its full-value transfers, which ensures the final beneficiary receives their money at full value with no deductions. The service helps enable travellers to add funds to their TourCard digital account with Bank of Shanghai from another source, helping to make the payment experience smoother when settling expenses locally.

Mobile wallets have become the dominant payment method in China, with over 84% of users utilising them for transactions in the past year

However, international payments are often impacted by credit card acceptance issues, high interchange costs and foreign exchange (FX) charges, causing friction in the process.

With Bank of Shanghai’s TourCard solution powered by Citi, travellers can get access to local currency in China by linking a Bank of Shanghai CNY virtual account to their respective digital wallets in the Bank of Shanghai TourCard mini-app. The funding and final return of funds will happen through a Citi full-value transfer solution, powered by Swift Go and using Citi’s proprietary SwiftGo converter.

Swift Go is Swift’s fast and secure payments solution that offers end-to-end visibility on payment status and transparency on fees and FX costs.

Dawid Janas, Head of Global Clearing and FI Payments, Citi Services, said: “Our collaboration with Bank of Shanghai provides an end-to-end solution for international travellers so they can enjoy their travel experience throughout China without having to worry about their payment method. This is another example of how our Services business continues to deliver integrated payment solutions for our clients and their customers.”

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Hu Debin, Vice President and CIO, Bank of Shanghai, added: “This innovative product we developed with Citi enriches the top-up channel of TourCard. We are convinced that our optimised service will enhance payment convenience and provide overseas travellers with an excellent mobile payment experience in China.”