UnionPay quickens expansion of card business in Australia

（People's Daily Online）  09:51, May 30, 2013  

SYDNEY, May 29 (People’s Daily Online) UnionPay International and Australia’s biggest bank Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) have announced in Sydney that CBA will begin accepting UnionPay cards on its 170,000 POS terminals as of today and are expected to cover all its POS terminals by the end of the year, bringing the total number of POS terminals accepting UnionPay cards to 50 percent of the total in Australia.

Su Ning, Chairman of UnionPay, and Ian Saines, Vice President of CBA attended the ceremony. Li Huaxin, Chinese Consul General in Sydney, and Andrew Stoner, Lieutenant Governor of New South Wales were present to congratulate.

China is the largest trading partner and the second largest tourist source country of Australia and is honored as “the valuable tourist market for Australia”. Recent years have seen double-digit growth in the number of Chinese tourists visiting Australia, resulting in an income of AUD 4.2 billion for Australia.

To match this situation, UnionPay card acceptance environment and service system have also seen continuous improvement. At present, UnionPay cards have been accepted by 60 percent of ATMs in Australia and tens of thousands of POS terminals in shopping centers, schools, taxis, and other similar places. Besides, UnionPay cards can also be used for cross-border online shopping at some famous online merchants in Australia.

As a party to the cooperation with UnionPay International for expanding UnionPay card acceptance business, CBA is in cooperation with a great number of merchants covering department stores, hotels, restaurants, and various fashion brands. David Jones, a department store chain that decided to accept UnionPay cards is the benchmark of local retail industry, and also a place most frequently visited by tourists travelling in Australia. From this point on, other famous brand chain stores of CBA will also start to accept UnionPay cards, providing UnionPay cardholders more convenient and favorable payment service.

Su Ning, Chairman of UnionPay, said that over recent years, more and more UnionPay cardholders have come to Australia for traveling, study and business. Among the frequently used are not only UnionPay cards issued in China but also those issued in many other countries and regions. UnionPay International has been enhancing its capability in serving the international UnionPay card acceptance network and the capability in assisting cooperative partners with their business development. As an important partner, CBA has a powerful network resource. The two sides will proactively explore further cooperation in card issuance and innovative payment while facilitating the improvement of card acceptance environment, so as to provide cardholders with more excellent service and better support the cooperation and exchanges between China and Australia.

Ian Saines, vice president of CBA, said in view of the rapid growth in the number of Chinese tourists and overseas students travelling in Australia, more and more local merchants hope to introduce UnionPay card payment service to better serve those visiting the country. To this end, CBA will work with UnionPay International to enable its merchants to accept UnionPay cards. He believes that UnionPay cards will bring more customers to banks and merchants cooperating with CBA. Through the cooperation, CBA will be able to win new market opportunities while providing those customers with excellent card use experience.

Li Huaxin, Chinese Consul General in Sydney, and Andrew Stoner, Lieutenant Governor of New South Wales extended their congratulations to the cooperation between UnionPay International and CBA. They said during the Australian prime minister’s visit to China in April, 2013, a strategic partnership was established and several economic and trade cooperation results were achieved by the two countries. The expanded use of UnionPay cards in Australia through the cooperation between UnionPay International and CBA is not only a new achievement the two countries have made in financial cooperation but also an important action taken by local authority to improve tourism service, which is conducive to promote the in-depth development of bilateral economic and trade relations and personnel exchanges.