China UnionPay

A global payments provider Elavon, wholly owned by US Bancorp, has partnered with China UnionPay to enable merchants of Elavon accept UnionPay’s debit and credit card payments in Canada with the plans to further expand into Latin America.

The partnership bases Elavon’s secure, world class international processing platform to provide merchants with the benefit of a single point of service for processing, funding, settlement and reporting for all Visa®, MasterCard®, American Express®, Discover® Network and UnionPay transactions.

Chinese largest card network China UnionPay has signed a memorandum of understanding with American Express that stipulates the two companies will be exploring the expansion of their current cooperative activities.

Over the past several years China UnionPay and American Express have cooperated within China where American Express Cards run on the China UnionPay network. Under the new MOU the working teams of both entities will develop potential new areas of cooperation between them within China and in markets outside of China.

Brazilian bank Itau Unibanco entered into a cooperation agreement with China UnionPay Co Ltd (CUP). Under this partnership CUP clients with their 2.2 billion credit and debit cards will be able to withdraw at over 30,000 Itau ATMs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Shanghai-based CUP has over 400 associated institutions, domestic and foreign. It is present in over 90 countries.

As the flow of Chinese tourists into South Korea is rapidly increasing enthusiastic purchase of Korean products has resulted in a surge in the use of China’s dominant China UnionPay credit card in Korea.

As reported by BC Card who shares its payment network with China UnionPay142.1 billion won ($120.79 million) was charged to the Chinese credit cards between January to July, an increase of 163 percent from a year ago.

PayPal plans to break in the profitable break in the Japanese market   by making an effort to enter it, despite the absence of eBay in the country.

eBay left the Japanese market in 2002, the same year it acquired PayPal, conceding the country to Yahoo Japan.

On Thursday Visa Inc announced its move to impose a ban on banks using China UnionPay Co.'s network to process international transactions with credit cards bearing the Visa and UnionPay symbols, reports the Wall Street Journal.

It is supposed that the move will mainly affect Chinese cardholders travelling overseas but not transactions inside China. Visa’s action is seen as an effort to show its dissatisfaction with limitations imposed on the network within the Chinese market.

China UnionPay card network operator has launched an initiative to organize a group of national banks, wireless operators and handset makers to form a mobile payments industry alliance in a move to make the sector be more standardized and regulated.

According to the official statement members will be working to promote mobile payment business adopting the international standard on contactless communication defined by the ISO.

Global Payments Asia-Pacific Limited, a joint venture between the U.S.-based Global Payments Inc. and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited ("HSBC"), has announced the launch of China UnionPay card acceptance in additional Asian areas including Brunei, the Maldives, the Philippines, Singapore and Sri Lanka.

PayPal has partnered with China UnionPay to allow millions of its cardholders to use PayPal to shop online. The initiative thus provides international retailers with a huge opportunity to sell to a large base of Chinese customers.

 On Sunday China United Network Communications Co. Ltd. and China's sole payment service network, China Unionpay Co. Ltd., announced their strategic partnership for providing mobile payments in the country.

China Unicom subscribers will be offered China Unionpay service that enables users to make payments and transfer money among participating banks. Besides, the companies’ conjoint statement says that they will cooperate on the exploration of value-added services such as e-commerce payment applications and security services.

 INTERAC, Canada’s national debit network, and China Unionpay, China’s national bank card payment network, have announced the launch of a new service that will give China Unionpay cardholders traveling in Canada the ability to withdraw cash from ATMs of participating acquirers in Canada.