UnionPay International (UPI) is a China UnionPay subsidiary established in November 2012. Together with more than 1,000 institutions worldwide, UPI provides international card acceptance in 160 countries and card issuance in more than 40 countries and regions. While delivering high-quality, cost-effective, and secure cross-border payment services, it also offers local services that provide convenience for cardholders and merchants, giving it a steadily growing cardholder base. UnionPay, founded in 2002 through the coming together of more than 500 financial institutions, is recognized as the largest payment system in the global payment market, with card numbers reaching 5 billion. UnionPay also operates the international clearing system in China.
UnionPay cards, which have an especially wide network in China and other Asian countries, are also used in more than 40 countries outside China, such as Hong Kong, South Korea, and Russia. Through new partnerships, UnionPay is growing into a global card scheme, and its card acceptance network is widely used in more than 170 countries and regions outside China. UnionPay has partnerships with more than 500 institutions and banks.
In addition to the special privileges it offers cardholders in many countries, the easy and secure payment service it provides has also played an important role in its rise to a world-leading position.
Privileges offered to UnionPay cardholders
Some of these special privileges are as follows:
- Swiss watchmaker Swatch put its new watch models featuring UnionPay's cloud-based payment technology on sale in stores across 28 cities in China. Customers who buy the watch, called Swatchpay, can add their card details to the app through banks that are UnionPay members, and can then carry out contactless payments at POS terminals equipped with UnionPay QuickPass.
- In mobile payments, the new battleground in the fierce rivalry between Apple and Samsung smartphones, Samsung Pay also made its move after Apple Pay announced its partnership with UnionPay in China. Samsung signed an agreement with UnionPay, just like its rival Apple Pay, to launch its mobile payment system Samsung Pay in China. By loading UnionPay-branded debit and credit cards onto the Samsung Pay app on Samsung-brand phones, users can make contactless mobile payments. Samsung's mobile payment app Samsung Pay, which supports MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission) technology in addition to NFC (Near Field Communication), succeeded in reaching users in China through UnionPay.
- UnionPay cards are among the most secure payment instruments in the industry, thanks to 6-digit PIN-based transactions, chip technology, and debit transaction volume.
- The effort to create an international standard for QR code payments was led by UnionPay, an EMVCo member, and EMVCo introduced the new specification as a new step toward making China's payment standard international.
UnionPay's status in Turkey
In recent years, the growth in overseas spending by tourists from the Far East, particularly from China, Japan, and South Korea, drove the adoption of UnionPay cards in Turkey, just as in many other parts of the world. In this context, efforts to make UnionPay cards usable like Visa and Mastercard began in 2013 when BKM signed a cooperation agreement, and the infrastructure work needed for UnionPay cards to be used at all ATMs in Turkey was completed in 2014. After the infrastructure work was completed, the first transactions with UnionPay-branded cards across Turkey began at Isbank ATMs. Most banks now accept UnionPay cards at their POS terminals and ATMs.
In 2015, a cooperation agreement on e-commerce was reached between UnionPay and Isbank, enabling merchants selling online in Turkey to access the UnionPay online payment system (UPOP) directly through Isbank's virtual POS and accept payments with UnionPay cards.
Partnering with UnionPay gives banks and financial institutions access to China's and the Far East's large consumer base, along with new opportunities for growth. Accepting UnionPay cards raises brand awareness and brings in more customers from China and the more than 40 other countries and regions where UnionPay cards are issued.
The number of players in the global card market is growing every day. Who knows -- the dominance of MasterCard and Visa in the card market may soon be broken, and new players may seize market leadership. We'll wait and see.