Native name | 银联 (Yínlián) |
---|---|
Company type | State-owned |
Industry | Financial services |
Founded | 2002 |
Headquarters | Pudong, Shanghai, China |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Shi Wenchao (President) |
Products | Payment systems Credit cards |
Number of employees | 559 (UnionPay International) |
Website | unionpayintl.com |
UnionPay (Chinese: 银联; pinyin: Yínlián), also known as China UnionPay (Chinese: 中国银联; pinyin: Zhōngguó Yínlián) or by its abbreviation, CUP or UPI internationally, is a Chinese state-owned financial services corporation headquartered in Shanghai, China. It provides bank card services and a major card scheme in mainland China. Founded on 26 March 2002, China UnionPay is an association for China's banking card industry, operating under the approval of the People's Bank of China (PBOC, central bank of China).[1] It is also an electronic funds transfer at point of sale (EFTPOS) network, and the only interbank network in China that links all the automatic teller machine (ATMs) of all banks throughout the country. UnionPay cards can be used in 181 countries and regions around the world.[2]
In 2015, the UnionPay overtook Visa and Mastercard in total value of payments made by customers and became the largest card payment processing organization (debit and credit cards combined) in the world surpassing the two. However, only 0.5% of this payment volume was outside of China.[3]
UnionPay offers mobile and online payments services.[4][5]