How to Do Money Transfer in WeChat Accounts?

WeChat is the one of the popular payment channels in China along with Alipay. It is the most suitable option for expats and foreigners in China as creating WeChat account does not require Chinese ID card. Also, everyone from road side vendors to big shopping malls accept WeChat payment making life easier. Besides vendor payments, you can easily transfer money from your WeChat account to any of your friend’s account. For example, when your Chinese friend pay money for you at the restaurant, you can instantly transfer the amount using WeChat.

In this article let us explain the step by step process of transferring money to another WeChat account.

What You Need for Money Transfer?

Before doing money transfer between WeChat accounts you should have the followings:

• Your own WeChat account. You can download and install WeChat app from any of the mobile app stores.
• You have added the receiver in your account as a friend.
• Verified WeChat Pay account.
• You have added a payment method using your bank card or have sufficient balance in your WeChat balance.

Remember, you can’t do international money transfer using WeChat Pay even you have account from other available countries. If someone sends red envelope, you can only use the money in China from your balance to pay vendors or top-up mobile. You need to verify the account with Chinese bankcard in order to transfer the red envelope money to your bank account.

How to Do Money Transfer in WeChat Accounts?

Now let us go through the step by step process.

• First open your WeChat app and choose the friend you want to send money under “Chats” section.

• Once the receiver is selected, tap on the + button next to the input box.
• You will see multiple options and tap on the “Transfer” button.

• On the next screen, enter the amount to be transferred to the selected person.
• You can also enter a note for the receiver to understand the purpose of the money transfer.
• In our example, we enter 6000 RMB and add a note “Insurance”.
• Finally tap on the “Transfer” button.

• WeChat will automatically select the payment mode based on the available balance. If you have sufficient balance then the WeChat balance will be used for payment. Otherwise the connected bank card will be used for the payment.

• If you have multiple cards or want to add a new payment card then touch the payment option as shown in the above picture.
• You will be seeing all the connected bank cards along with the WeChat balance and the option to add a new card.

• Once the payment mode is finalized, authorize the payment using touch id or password.

• Now that the money is transferred from your side and you will see a message in the chat section like below. You can tap on the message to view details of the transfer.

• Once the receiver accepts the money transfer, you as a sender will receive a confirmation message. WeChat will also change the previous message from the transfer symbol to the tick mark with the “Accepted” word.

• You can tap on any of the messages to see more details on the time of receipt.

Accepting Money at Receiver Side

• The sender will instantly receive the message on money transfer in his / her WeChat account. The note message entered by you will be shown in the message (we have entered a note “insurance”).

• He / she can tap on the message and accept the money to transfer.

• Receiver will get the transferred amount to his/her WeChat balance. He/she can either spend the money from the balance or withdraw the money to the bankcard.

Receive Money Without Being Friends

Sometimes, you may go with your friends, colleagues and spend money on-behalf of all. If you know all the people in the group, then use Split Bill option to share the bill with them. If you don’t know the people, then you need to add them as your friend. Alternatively, ask them to send money to your account without adding them as a friend.

Follow the below instructions to receive money from unknown people not in your WeChat contact list.

• Open WeChat and go to “Me > WeChat Pay > Money” option.
• You will see multiple options under the QR code.
• Tap on “Receive Money” to view another QR code.

• Anyone can scan this “Receive Money” QR code and send money to your WeChat account.
• You can set specific amount by tapping on the “Set Amount” option. Otherwise, the sender can type any amount and send to you.
• Unless your vendor payment code, “Receive Money” code is permanent and fixed. You can tap on the “Save Image” and save the QR code to your photo library on the phone. If required, you can print out this code and collect money from anyone. This is the way small shop owners collect the money by printing and pasting the “Receive Money” code on the cash counter.

Important Points on WeChat Money Transfer

Well, WeChat enables a very simple way to transfer money to your friends and receive money from anyone. However, remember the followings before sending money to any unknown person.

• After you transfer the amount, there are no ways to stop the money transfer. Even the receiver can’t reject the transfer.
• The transfer will be in waiting for acceptance status for 24 hours from the time of sent.
• WeChat will automatically cancel the payment transaction, if the receiver did not accept the transfer within 24 hours. The sender will receive the amount back in WeChat balance or linked bankcard.
• The payment code is valid for one minute and for only once. WeChat will generate a new payment code every time. This is to avoid fraud activities by using the payment code offline.
• There will no separate receipt or invoice (called fapiao in Chinese) issued for WeChat transfers. So only use money transfer within your informal friends circle. When you need a fapiao, pay through appropriate channel with the proof.
• Avoid using money transfer to personal accounts on shopping malls. Instead show your vendor payment bar code / QR code so that the cashier can scan with the scanner. Go to “Me > Wallet > Money” section on the app to view your vendor payment code. You can also find the vendor code quickly by tapping the + button on the top right corner of the WeChat app and then tapping “Money” option.
• We highly recommend to setup the password for accessing vendor payment code to avoid accidental use.
• It is possible to transfer the amount to anyone’s bankcard in China.
• You can setup the payment delay after acceptance in the settings to send the money instantly, after 2 hours or after 24 hours.
• WeChat records all transaction history of sent and received money for you to check anytime.