Banking cards with UnionPay logos (Xinhua/Meng Zhongde)

UnionPay International, a subsidiary of Chinese payment firm UnionPay, has recently established a partnership with the Agricultural Cooperative Bank of Armenia (ACBA) to enable the acceptance of UnionPay card transactions in Armenia for the first time.

So far, UnionPay acceptance has expanded to 177 countries. The overall acceptance rate of UnionPay cards is nearly 70 percent in Central Asia and Transcaucasia. In Kazakhstan, the UnionPay acceptance rate has reached 100 percent, and in Uzbekistan and Georgia, the rate stands at 80 percent.

As the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative has accelerated, the demand for cross-border payment between China and markets along Belt and Road routes has increased. To satisfy this demand, UnionPay continues to improve its payment services in relevant countries.

Currently, UnionPay exists in more than 80 percent of the countries and regions that have signed Belt and Road cooperation agreements with China, covering about 10 million merchants and nearly 700,000 ATMs.