Unionpay’s Merchant Coverage Rate in Italy Will Grow From 50% Now to 60% Next Year

UnionPay International announced today that it has inked a cooperation agreement with ICCREA Banking Group in Italy (hereinafter referred to as “ICCREA”). The agreement will enable all of the latter’s merchants to accept UnionPay card (card number starting with 62). Within the next year, the UnionPay merchant coverage in Italy will grow from 50% now to 60%. Shi Wenchao, President of China UnionPay, Giovanni Gelsomino, COO of ICCREA, attended the signing ceremony. Li Ruiyu, China’s ambassador to Italy, and Xu Xiaofeng, Economic and Commercial Minister Counsellor to Italy were present to witness.

Over the past few years, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Italy has been increasing rapidly. The Italian government and industries have taken multiple measures to attract Chinese tourists, including offering travel websites in the Chinese language, providing Chinese-speaking tour guides in popular attractions, and encouraging the local merchants to accept UnionPay cards. In this context, the UnionPay acceptance network in Italy is expanding continuously. Now, over 80% of the ATMs and 50% of the merchants accept UnionPay. These ATMs and merchants are located in popular tourist destinations, such as Rome, Milan and Florence, covering department stores, tourist attractions, restaurants and hotels.

According to Shi Wenchao, UnionPay is rapidly expanding its footprint in major countries and regions in Europe, and is able to meet tourists’ payment needs in these destinations. In Italy, we continue to invest more in the market, and are carrying out in-depth cooperation with mainstream institutions. With this agreement, all the ATMs and POS terminals in the ICCREA network will be able to accept UnionPay, and this will provide stronger support for the regional economic development and the personnel exchanges. We will promote future cooperation in card issuance and mobile payment while launching the acceptance program.

Giovanni Gelsomino said, he was willing to help expand UnionPay’s acceptance footprint together with UnionPay International so as to enhance the market’s financial service capability for international tourists. Accepting UnionPay will also provide more options for the local merchants, and thus realize an all-win result.

Li Ruiyu expressed his congratulations for the cooperation between UnionPay and ICCREA, and said that the financial cooperation between China and Italy is inseparably intertwined with the two countries’ cooperation in other fields. The financial cooperation between the two countries has developed from fields of finance loans, to trade finance insurance, share acquisition, and small and medium-sized enterprise development. Now, 5 major banks from China are present in Italy now, and Italy has become one of the European countries that have attracted the most investment from China. Large-scale and deeper financial cooperation will provide more advanced convenient and comprehensive services for the economic and trade cooperation between the two countries. I believe this cooperation between UnionPay and ICCREA will offer more convenience for the Chinese citizens visiting Italy, and will further boost the cooperation and personnel exchanges between the two countries.

As one of the primary bank groups in Italy, ICCREA provides products and services for more than 300 cooperative credit banks and has over 4,000 outlets. Previously, ICCREA has enabled the ATMs in all its outlets to accept UnionPay cards. This time, UnionPay International deepens its cooperation with ICCREA: first, to enable all the latter’s merchants to successively accept UnionPay cards so as to expand the use channels of UnionPay cards in Italy; second, to strengthen the two’s cooperation in innovative payment and services to enable all these POS terminals to accept UnionPay contactless payment.

UnionPay has expanded its footprint to 39 European countries and regions, and is accelerating the chip migration of its network in Europe. Almost all the ATMs in Switzerland, Austria and Iceland as well as over 80% of the local ATMs in Spain and Greece accept UnionPay. Meanwhile, about 2 million merchants in Europe accept UnionPay, and these merchants include duty free shops, department stores, and more and more restaurants and cultural entertainment establishments.