UnionPay Card Facilitates the Personnel Exchanges Among the BRICS

It is learnt from UnionPay International that in the context of increasing financial flows and infrastructure interconnection among the BRICS, UnionPay is making breakthroughs in Russia, Brazil, South Africa and India. UnionPay is accepted at over 80% of ATMs and POS terminals in South Africa, and 70% of merchants in Brazil. In Russia, the UnionPay acceptance coverage will reach 80% or more within this year.

It is observed that UnionPay International is speeding up its business expansion in the BRICS in fields of card acceptance, card issuance and payment innovation. On the one hand, UnionPay International is facilitating personnel exchanges between China and the countries concerned, and on the other, it is exploring the effective way to financial infrastructure interconnection among these countries to enhance the international influence of the BRICS’ payments industry.

Facilitating personnel exchanges through better payment services

China is having increasingly frequent tourism and trade contact with other BRICS countries. Statistics show that during the first seven months of this year, the import-export volume between China and the other BRICS countries grows by 32.9% year-on-year, 14.4 percentage points higher than the overall growth of China’s foreign trade. The data of Russia Tourism also show that the number of Chinese tourists to Russia is growing steadily, and China has become the largest tourist source of Russia.

In Russia, UnionPay is accepted at 140,000 more merchants and 55,000 more ATMsover the first half of this year. In the past one and a half years, the UnionPay cards issued in Russia has rapidly increased from 400,000 to 1,000,000, and these cards are frequently used in about 60 countries and regions.

The UnionPay business in Russia has made substantial progress since this year. Firstly, the largest commercial bank in Russia, Sberbank, has comprehensively launched the acceptance of UnionPay cards. Secondly, the card-issuing cooperation between UnionPay International and NSPK has landed, and the first UnionPay-MIR debit card is issued by Russian Agricultural Bank, a member bank of NSPK. The UnionPay-MIR card extends the using scope of MIR cards from Russia to over 160 countries and regions, and substantially facilitating Russian residents’ cross-border card using.

Similarly, in South Africa, major banks the Standard Bank of South Africa, the First National Bank and Barclays Africa have accepted UnionPay cards. UnionPay International has also cooperated with Bank of China (Johannesburg) in issuing the first UnionPay card in South Africa, firstly mainly for the Chinese enterprises and Chinese people in the country. In Brazil, UnionPay cards are accepted at more than 1 million merchants. UnionPay cards are also accepted at all the about 30,000 ATMs of ITAU, the largest bank in Brazil, meeting cardholders’ payment needs in the country.

The UnionPay business has made a breakthrough too in India this July. UnionPay International has reached cooperation with NPCI which will enable all the ATMs in India to accept UnionPay cards within two years, and enable all the local POS terminals to accept UnionPay cards in the next three years.

All these mean that the UnionPay card is not only providing service for the Chinese cardholders visiting the BRICS, but also a payment method of more and more residents in these countries for daily spending and international travel. In 2016, the transaction volume of UnionPay cards issued in mainland China grew by over 50% in Russia, and the transaction volume of UnionPay cards issued in Russia grew by over 30% in mainland China.

Promoting industry cooperation through payment innovation

“I just came back from Russia. Almost all the stores in the Red Square accept UnionPay cards, and it is very convenient to withdraw RUB with UnionPay cards. Moreover, mobile QuickPass is available at some merchants.” A Chinese tourist whom has been to Russia thus shared his experience on the Internet.

Besides the traditional acceptance and issuance business, UnionPay International is also promoting innovative payment services including online and mobile payment in BRICS. In Russia, mobile QuickPass is available at some stores, enabling UnionPay cardholders to pay easily with mobile phones. The official websites of Aeroflot-Russian Airlines and Siberia Airlines also support UnionPay cards for online ticket booking. UnionPay International has also reached cooperation with PSB to enable over 10,000 more POS terminals to accept mobile QuickPass next year.

In South Africa, UnionPay International is cooperating with Nedbank to enable about 50,000 POS terminals of the Bank to accept UnionPay cards. In addition, the two parties have also agreed to offer UnionPay Online Payment at the online merchants of the Bank. These e-merchants include Sun International and Tsogo Su, the two largest local hotel groups.

In the future, UnionPay International will continue its cooperation with various players in the payment industry in the BRICS in payment innovation, to meet the increasingly diverse needs of customers. Meanwhile, UnionPay International will make full use of its advantages in technology, standards, system and rules to carry out collaboration with the payment switch networks of these countries, jointly promoting the upgrade of and interconnection among the financial infrastructure in the BRICS.