DBS PayLah! users can now pay at more than 100 million Alipay and Weixin Pay partner merchants in mainland China, DBS said on November 12. The wallet has more than three million users, and payments work both ways: users can scan a merchant’s QR code or show their own code for the merchant to scan.
DBS works with Ant International on Alipay+ and with TenPay Global on Weixin Pay. Before confirming, users see the amount in yuan, the exchange rate and the Singapore dollar amount, and DBS charges no added transaction fee. Merchants keep their current systems. With its existing UnionPay QR link, DBS says it is the only bank in Singapore to support QR payments across all three main Chinese QR networks. OCBC added Weixin Pay merchant scanning in February, but its customers cannot show their own code for Weixin Pay, CNA reported.
- Foreign nationals made 11.6 million trips to China from July to September, up 15.6% year on year, according to China’s National Immigration Administration; Singapore was among the top 10 source countries
- Users of DBS remittances to Weixin wallets registered to foreign passports, launched in June, rose eightfold by the end of September
- Two SGD 3 cashback offers for overseas QR payments run from November 16, 2026 to January 31, 2027
Why it matters: Singapore banks are competing to keep China travel spending inside their own apps, and two-way Weixin Pay support gives DBS a feature its closest rival does not yet offer. The eightfold rise in Weixin remittance users points to demand, though DBS gave no payment volumes. Watch whether OCBC and UOB match the service before the year-end travel season.
Source: DBS, November 12, 2026; CNA, November 12, 2026; The Straits Times, November 12, 2026
Image: Harald Groven, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
