PaymentsJournal
No Result
View All Result
SIGN UP
  • Commercial
  • Credit
  • Debit
  • Digital Assets & Crypto
  • Digital Banking
  • Emerging Payments
  • Fraud & Security
  • Merchant
  • Prepaid
PaymentsJournal
  • Commercial
  • Credit
  • Debit
  • Digital Assets & Crypto
  • Digital Banking
  • Emerging Payments
  • Fraud & Security
  • Merchant
  • Prepaid
No Result
View All Result
PaymentsJournal
No Result
View All Result

Card Payments Market: China opens up to Visa and MasterCard

By Steve Murphy
June 9, 2016
in Analysts Coverage
0
0
SHARES
0
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedIn
Money withdrawal on the ATM

Money withdrawal on the ATM

Before anyone gets too excited about this announcement, let me just reintroduce a phrase from the 20th century, “hold the phone”. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the country’s primary bank regulator, has finally announced that qualified foreign entities can enter the card payments market. One must keep in mind that the original “promise” to open up the China market was made four years back, and only after a prior complaint (now going back 6 years) was filed through the WTO by the US government.

Visa and MasterCard have been lobbying for a way into the market – in which local scheme China UnionPay has long held an effective monopoly – for years. China promised to loosen UnionPay’s grip after the World Trade Organisation ruled in 2012 that the US firms were being discriminated against in the country. The WTO entered the fray after the US government made a complaint.

As is the normal case in China, where nothing is really normal, the ability to apply for a license comes with strings attached, which in this case is expensive and thick synthetic rope. The application process has a reported ninety day turnaround for a ruling, after which an approved foreign entity has a year to launch.

…outside players can apply for a license but that they must hold 1 billion yuan ($152 million) in registered capital in a local company, be based locally and meet cybersecurity standards

The article is a bit short on detail, so one might assume that the required investment will be in some type of payments entity, and it would not be a stretch to believe that the Chinese government will hold at least a minority equity position. So we will track and see where this goes as Visa and MasterCard (among others) work their way through the application process. One might also be reminded of a saying derived from the long history of China, “seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times”.

Overview Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group

Read the full story here

0
SHARES
0
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedIn
Tags: Credit

    Get the Latest News and Insights Delivered Daily

    Subscribe to the PaymentsJournal Newsletter for exclusive insight and data from Javelin Strategy & Research analysts and industry professionals.

    Must Reads

    commercial card, Allpay ClearBank Prepaid Payments, wealth transfer

    How Banks Can Capture the Wealth Transfer from Boomers to Gen Z

    June 20, 2025
    embedded lending

    Embedded Lending as a Growth Strategy for ISVs—How to Maximize Revenue Potential

    June 18, 2025
    merchant ai

    Merchants Find More Use Cases for AI Amid Risks

    June 17, 2025
    prepaid payroll

    Taking the Check Out of Paycheck: The Role of Prepaid in Payroll

    June 16, 2025
    Banking-as-a-service BaaS

    Remodeling Main Street: How Community Banks Can Leverage the Banking-as-a-Service Paradigm

    June 12, 2025
    How Employee Performance Enhances the Customer Experience

    Three Strategies to Maximize Loyalty in the AI-Driven World 

    June 11, 2025
    PFM tools

    How FIs Are Cutting Through Subscription Clutter with PFM Tools

    June 10, 2025
    child identity theft

    Stranger Danger: Protecting Your Children from Identity Theft

    June 9, 2025

    Linkedin-in X-twitter
    • Commercial
    • Credit
    • Debit
    • Digital Assets & Crypto
    • Digital Banking
    • Commercial
    • Credit
    • Debit
    • Digital Assets & Crypto
    • Digital Banking
    • Emerging Payments
    • Fraud & Security
    • Merchant
    • Prepaid
    • Emerging Payments
    • Fraud & Security
    • Merchant
    • Prepaid
    • About Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Sign Up for Our Newsletter
    • About Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Sign Up for Our Newsletter

    ©2024 PaymentsJournal.com |  Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

    • Commercial Payments
    • Credit
    • Debit
    • Digital Assets & Crypto
    • Emerging Payments
    • Fraud & Security
    • Merchant
    • Prepaid
    No Result
    View All Result