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Comment by captainhcg | Hacker News Reader

`You can send or receive money in Messenger (example: send your friend $10 for lunch or receive $500 from your roommate for rent) after you add a debit card issued by a US bank to your account.`

It requires you to bind your account with a debit card. I am using WeChat for years but I never attach my debit card to it, because I do not have a China debit card. When I need e-money, I just ask my family or give my friends some cash and they transfer e-money to me. That's all. Then I can use the e-money for offline shopping, online shopping, sending Hongbao (as gift-card). I do not understand why debit card is required.

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- `How does the money enter the network in the first place? You can use services like Venmo without linking payment information, but obviously you can't withdraw your balance. reply` - `So where is that e-money coming from? You must be linking something... a bank account perhaps?`

Nowadays most people have already linked their accounts with bank. But you still do not have to. When the feature first released in 2014, most people used the e-money for social purposes like sending gift cards and transferring small amount of cash; people just did not withdraw money.

That's one of the most important reasons why WeChat won tens of millions e-money users in a very short period.

How does the money enter the network in the first place? You can use services like Venmo without linking payment information, but obviously you can't withdraw your balance.

One of the options that comes into mind - your could at money using payment terminals or buying a 'refill' card with a code. Not sure how it works on their case though

So where is that e-money coming from? You must be linking something... a bank account perhaps?

WeChat holds the money - it's like PayPal.

Yes, WeChat wallet serves as a non-interest bearing escrow. So someone somehow has to link bank account/debit cards to infuse money into WeChat network first. You obviously need to link to your bank account in order to cash the balance out of WeChat. But given "90%" daily payment use-cases that WeChat covers, you are more likely to spend the balance somewhere than cash them out.

You can very easily link your Chinese bank account to the digital payment services like AliPay and WeChat. All you need is a Chinese bank account (UnionPay) and the phone number that you gave them when you setup the account.

This is mandatory when you ask for an online banking account.

All you do is enter the number on your bank card, they text you a code, you enter the code and the payment or linking of the account is confirmed.

Try being a foreigner with a unionpay card but lacking a Chinese indentity card number. I heard it's better now, but that requirement was always a bummer for me in trying to do payments online.

That problem was solved (for at least the big banks: ICBC, BoC, CMB, CCB) for WeChat at least 2 years before you left China.

For Alipay, it was already solved when I moved to China in 2010.

As recently as last year I had trouble setting up Uber in china because they wanted my Chinese ID number to go along with my Chinese credit card. Thing is, they wouldn't ask if I was using a non Chinese card.

I have both Alipay and Baidu Wallet connected to my Uber China account. I haven't tried linking a Chinese bank card directly to Uber, but I don't have any reason to do that.

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