UnionPay to expand coverage in Shanghai

By Zhang Fengming  |   2008-12-19  |     ONLINE EDITION

CHINA UnionPay Co plans to increase its merchant coverage to more than 80 percent in Shanghai by 2010 to expand the "just swipe it" purchase model, the company said today.

UnionPay will expand its network in the Yangtze River Delta to increase the coverage of bank card use.

By 2010, more than 60 percent of merchants in nearby cities in Nanjing, Hangzhou and Ningbo will be linked to UnionPay's system. Coverage in cities such as Suzhou, Wuxi and Shaoxing will be more than 40 percent, UnionPay said.

About 211,000 merchants in the Yangtze River Delta have joined the UnionPay system by the end of November, accounting for 18.6 percent of the country's total. About 399,000 point of sale machines, 22.5 percent of the nation's total, have been installed in the region.

Bank card-based purchases topped 559.1 billion yuan (US$81.62 billion), 24.5 percent of the country's total, in the region at the end of 2007. The figure is 5.6 percentage points higher than the region's contribution to the country's economy.

The government is encouraging the use of bank cards to help cut money laundering and make it easier to track merchants' business transactions and tax payments.

Shanghai-based UnionPay will expand its domestic and overseas network within three to five years. It hopes to double its network to about 100 countries and regions, Xu Luode, chief executive officer and president of UnionPay told Shanghai Daily in October. UnionPay now has a network covering 50 countries and regions, Xu said.