China UnionPay

Established in March 2002, UnionPay is a bankcard association established under the approval of the State Council and the People’s Bank of China. At present, the Shanghai-headquartered UnionPay has about 400 domestic and overseas associate members.

Release time : 2014-06-27 08:00:00

source : wtcf.travel

safeguarded the economic and financial security of China, but also promoted unprecedented and spanning development of China’s bankcard industry, and enabled China to be one of the fastest growing countries with greatest potential in the bankcard industry worldwide.

With the joint efforts of UnionPay and several commercial banks, the bankcard netted utilization in China has been continuously deepened. In addition to the increasing coverage in the eastern regions and large and middle-sized cities, UnionPay network also extends to the middle and western regions, the middle and small-sized cities as well as the rural area. In 2010, domestic UnionPay acceptance network accelerated extension to small and medium-sized cities and the broad rural regions, the numbers of bankcard networking merchants, POS terminals and ATM machines respectively increasing by 40%, 38% and 31%. A scale bankcard acceptance network has been taken shape in China. Along with the continuous deepening of netted utilization as well as ongoing improvement of bankcard acceptance environment nationwide, the bankcard transactions also grow rapidly. In 2010, interbank transaction amount of domestic bankcard reached 11.2 trillion Yuan, a year-on-year growth of 46%. The proportion of bankcard consumption in the total volume of retail sales of social consumables increased from 2.7% in 2001 to 35% at present(note).

In order to meet the growing demand for card use of the Chinese in overseas business, travel and study, and to extend the services of domestic commercial banks abroad via UnionPay network, UnionPay is dedicated to the construction of an international acceptance network. As of today, UnionPay cards have been accepted in 150 countries and regions outside China. Meanwhile, UnionPay also actively promotes issuance of UnionPay standard cards overseas, with a goal of providing payment convenience for foreigners in their work, travel and study in China. At present, 65 institutions in 17 overseas