China UnionPay

History

With the approval of the People's Bank of China, China UnionPay was launched on March 26, 2002 in Shanghai by PBOC governor Dai Xianglong, with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China, the Bank of China and the China Construction Bank serving as its first members. However, the concept of a unified Chinese bank card network dates back to 1993, with the formation of the "Golden Card Project" advocated by then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin. UnionPay is considered the descendant of the Golden Card Project, although attempts at unifying China's various credit card and interbank networks have been in place since the 1990s.

In 2014, UnionPay was reported to have been contributing to capital flight from China, through poorly regulated store front operations in Macau.

Logo

The CUP logo originated in China prior to the establishment of the CUP network system development early trial run, with a computer and graphics background of the trial operation of the person in accordance with the multiple unity, Heiner Sea, stable development of the concept of vision, commonly known as "angel color". Red, blue, green ternary color block design represent the integrity of cooperation, steady flow, safety assurance, and accompanied by white in Chinese characters "UnionPay." The logo was first registered in 1997 and launched in Shenzhen trial, the establishment of China UnionPay transferred to China UnionPay.

China UnionPay started limited trial card distribution in March 2001 and the China UnionPay officially opened. By January 2002, many banks and financial institutions began a larger trial in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Shenzhen and other five cities issued with the UnionPay logo bank cards, which gradually extended to the entire country.

On October 18, 2005, China UnionPay announced a new logo, the new card keeps three-color blocks of the old logo with other local elements being adjusted. As well as an increased usage of the English UnionPay wordmark. At present, both card styles are in circulation, with the old identity of the UnionPay cards gradually being replaced.

In the use of the UnionPay logo, due to CUP worried about the use of the new logo will be due to the promotion of overseas and the old logo is different from overseas merchants refused to accept UnionPay cards, therefore unified domestic debit card and RMB single currency credit card use new logo, international debit Cards and dual currency credit cards still use the old logo. Until the beginning of 2009 dual-currency credit card banks began to gradually replace the use of new UnionPay logo.

QuickPass

Upon the introduction of EMV chips into China UnionPay cards, many banks also introduced QuickPass (Chinese: 闪付) a contactless payment feature similar to MasterCard's PayPass or Visa's payWave. However, unlike MasterCard or Visa's implementation, in the case of debit cards, QuickPass does not operate on a trust-based system, but rather as a stored-value card (similar to girogo/GeldKarte in Germany).

Payments by QuickPass-enabled debit cards can only be made using funds which have been "withdrawn" (圈存) from the account and stored on the card itself as electronic cash (essentially preauthorising the funds for use, eliminating the possibility that an offline transaction may exceed the account holder's balance).

Online payments

UnionPay is China's first financial-level pre-authorization service for secured transactions. The system allows payment for online shopping at any merchant that accepts UnionPay. During 2014, the total amount of cross-bank transactions of CUP card exceeded 41.1 trillion yuan.

Use abroad

UnionPay cards can be used in 141 countries and regions around the world, making it the third-largest payment network by value of transactions processed, behind Visa and MasterCard. Some UnionPay credit cards are also affiliated with American Express, MasterCard or Visa, and they can be used abroad as an American Express, MasterCard or Visa. UnionPay debit cards, however, can only be used in the UnionPay network and other networks that have signed contracts with UnionPay. Since 2006, China UnionPay cards can be used in over 100 countries outside China.

In May 2005 Discover Network announced an alliance with China UnionPay Network. The two companies have signed a long-term agreement that allows acceptance of Discover Network brand cards at UnionPay ATMs and point-of-sale terminals in China and acceptance of China UnionPay cards on the PULSE network in the U.S. As of November 1, 2007, China UnionPay cards may be accepted where Discover Network Cards are accepted in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. As of early 2013, the cross acceptance agreement was expanded to support e-commerce or card-not-present transactions.

In March 2010 PayPal announced a partnership with China UnionPay enabling the use of PayPal with UnionPay member cards.

In 2015 China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) placed a 100,000 yuan annual cap on overseas UnionPay cash withdrawals

Members

UnionPay is the primary network of these Chinese banks:

Other UnionPay-affiliated organizations include municipal commercial banks as well as rural credit cooperatives. Overall, there are 165 financial institutions that issue UnionPay cards.

UnionPay had partnered with JETCO in Hong Kong and Macau until January 1, 2006. As of January 2013, Bank of East Asia and Citibank were the only banks allowed to independently issue UnionPay credit cards in Hong Kong and the mainland. HSBC and its subsidiary Hang Seng Bank independently issue UnionPay credit cards in Hong Kong, while they issue cards in the mainland in cooperation with local banks as noted above. Deutsche Bank only has co-issued cards, with no independently issued UnionPay credit cards.

The following ten foreign banks have the right to issue UnionPay debit cards in China:

UnionPay in other countries: