UnionPay International inks partnership deals

UnionPay International signed agreements of cooperation with major financial institutions from Laos, Indonesia, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan on Tuesday, to promote localization of its business in countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative and to support people-to-people exchanges between China and these economies.

The fields of cooperation include traditional and digitized bank card issuance and the construction of the switch processing system for bank card payments.

At a signing ceremony of agreements, UnionPay International, a subsidiary of China UnionPay, focused on the bank card association's growth of its global business, signed a memorandum of understanding with BCEL, one of the largest state-owned commercial banks in Laos, to establish a joint venture with local financial institutions to jointly operate and maintain Laos' national payment network.