Icard [International ccard or dcard] is becoming popular on wcpay, alipay and taobao.

Wife needs taobao. Period. “Stop using taobao” was my tough /proposition/. As of 2025, I consider icard-via-alipay as the most sustainable and strategic payment solution for her taobao needs… Light-touch fraud-control by Alipay. In contrast, all RMB payment channels come under strict scrutiny, esp. when she has no RMB bank account and must go through another person’s /onshore/ bank account. Every onshore Rmb account has high-touch fraud-control.

Q1: why is smrz /enforcement/ impractical for international cards (and mobileNum)?
Q2: why is third-party card binding allowed for icard?
%%A: fundamentally, Alipay (and wcpay) can’t confirm the “real” card owner even if owner is indeed the alipay account owner. Due to privacy protection, Alipay has no right to ask issuing bank “What’s the real identity of this card owner?” In contrast, with smrz China banks openaly share account owner information with Alipay and wcpay. Therefore, alipay/wcay are mroe strict and trigger-happy about fraud control. Presumably, they are asked by China government to collect, demand and keep evidence of full money trail of every transaction.

— alipay .. A single icard can bind to up to 3 unrelated alipay accounts (Q2).

eg: my international ccard is bound to wife’s alipay account (the CC).
eg: Boy was able to use ZLH passport + my HSBC.sg ccard.

— taobao .. Even withOUT smrz, wife’s alipay account (the “CC” account) can bind an icard. However, this icard is _supposedly_ unusable in taobao, regardless of alipay smrz.

On 8 Dec 2024, SCSC (-9933) ccard was used to pay for a taobao order, through ZLH’s “CC” alipay account. I feel relieved to open up (and confirm) this important channel, ending months of uncertainty.

Rule 1: Any taobao acct should bind an alipay acct (though you can remove the alipay account and leave the taobao account unattached).

Rule 2: taobao account is supposed to use an icard directly without going through the alipay acct. I think this is rarely used among the Chinese. We need to test Rule 2.

SMRZ in Rule 2 i.e. taobao using icard ? I think smrz is impractical. See Q1.