China UnionPay (Chinese: 中国银联), also known as UnionPay (Chinese: 银联) or by its abbreviation, CUP, is the only credit card organization in the People's Republic of China. It is also the only interbank network in China excluding Hong Kong and Macau, linking the ATMs of some fourteen major banks and many more smaller banks throughout China.
History
Members
UnionPay is the primary network of the following banks listed below:
- Agricultural Bank of China
- Bank of China
- Bank of Communications
- China Construction Bank
- China Everbright Bank
- China Merchant Bank
- China Minsheng Bank
- CITIC Industrial Bank
- Guangdong Development Bank
- Huaxia Bank
- Industrial Bank
- Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
- Shanghai Pudong Development Bank
- Shenzhen Development Bank
Other UnionPay-affiliated organizations include the China Postal Savings and Remittance Bureau, certain municipal commercial banks as well as rural credit cooperatives. Other financial institutions in cities that are already capable of issuing cards will issue UnionPay cards in succession.
Outside China, UnionPay has partnerships with other ATM networks. UnionPay has a partnership with JETCO in Hong Kong and Macau, both of which are excluded from the UnionPay system. UnionPay also has affiliations with other banks' networks: this is identified with the UnionPay logo being displayed on the ATM.
UnionPay credit cards are not widely accepted outside China; however, they are starting to gain acceptance in the United States, Western Europe, East Asia and Southeast Asia.