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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 27, 2002

Bank Card Service to Be sharply Expanded in China

China's bank card industry will take a giant leap forward following the announcement made Tuesday that a unified national payment system is to be introduced. The system, to be completely operational by 2005, will allow bank card users to use their cards at any terminal, no matter at which bank or in which city they keep their accounts.


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China's bank card industry will take a giant leap forward following the announcement made Tuesday that a unified national payment system is to be introduced.

The system, to be completely operational by 2005, will allow bank card users to use their cards at any terminal, no matter at which bank or in which city they keep their accounts.

With an all-Chinese shareholder structure and a registered capital of 198.8 million U.S. dollars, China Unionpay Co. Ltd will link all banks' payment systems throughout the country, and tag its brand on all the bank cards and automatic teller machines (ATM) or points of sales (POS).

Since January 10, China Unionpay bank card users in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Shenzhen have been able to use any ATM or POS thanks to China Unionpay.

By the end of this year, China Unionpay will link up ATM and POS machines in 100 cities and build up a cross-region and cross-bank network in 40 major cities.

Since 1987, China has issued more than 383 million bank cards, with the transaction volume reached 1.02 trillion U.S. dollars last year.



Bank Card in China
Fifty-five financial institutions in China have issued 330 million bank cards of various kind by June last year.

The number represents an 18.4 percent increase from the same period of last year, the central bank said.

Financial institutions that had opened bank card businesses include four state-owned commercial banks, ten shareholding commercial banks, one post office, 29 city commercial banks as well as 11 rural credit unions.

The outstanding amount of bank card deposits hit 374.2 billion yuan during the same period, up 28.6 percent from the end of last year.

Trade volume of bank cards totaled 4.85 trillion yuan or an increase of 224 percent from a year ago, PBOC sources said.

Currently, China has 129,000 banking outlets handling bank card businesses, and there are 49,000 automatic teller machines (ATMs) across the country.




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