download.jpg (Photo : Unionpay)
UnionPay International reveals to the world its expansion plans to further their presence in prospective overseas clients beyond its services to over 148 countries and regions outside mainland China last Friday.
In an email interview with Xinhua, the banking company expressed that these expansions would also include improvement in their services and for more coverage outside their already covered scope. The company would cater to their services and to the increasing global trend in the payment sector.
Currently UnionPay International is known in South Korea since 2005 with over 10 million UnionPay cards issued to associated local banks.
Yin Nan from Beijing commented that her experiences in South Korea through UnionPay were similar to ones she had at home with 80 percent of her expenses such as hotels, flight tickets and shopping all paid through the same bank without much worry over carrying large sums of money.
Other countries that cater to UnionPay services are from Japan, Mongolia and China's Hong Kong and Macao regions with the latter having the most ATMs and businesses accepting UnionPay cards.
Macao and Hong Kong are also the most issued with having nearly 20 million UnionPay cards.
Despite only serving the Asia-Pacific demographic, UnionPay also has become one of the biggest international bancard brands known in the market where it also covers sites frequented by Chinese travelers in Europe and North America
Chinese mainland travelers currently have made more than 100 million trips overseas within the first 11 months in the year 2013, a feat compared to the 9 million made in 1998.
It is also observed that these travelers frequent neighboring Asian countries and regions, counting up to 90 percent of destinations then followed by European destinations with 3.5 percent, 2.7 percent in destinations found in the Americas and 1.1 percent in Oceania destinations.
