China’s government indicated that it plans to end a monopoly in bank-card clearing from June, paving the way for companies such as MasterCard Inc and Visa Inc to get a foothold in an industry that handles US$73 trillion per year.
Rules published yesterday by the Chinese State Council allow for foreign firms to obtain licenses for such businesses by setting up units or acquiring local players. They take effect on June 1, China’s Cabinet said on its Web site.
China UnionPay Co (中國銀聯) has previously been the sole clearing service provider for yuan-denominated bank-card payments.
China’s market opening would represent a “huge opportunity” for US payment networks, FBR Capital Markets analyst Scott Valentin said in October last year, when the government indicated that it planned to end UnionPay’s monopoly.
The WTO told the Asian nation in 2012 to stop discriminating against foreign payment firms, a group that includes American Express Co.
China had 4.9 billion bank cards at the end of last year, according to the central bank. The value of credit and debit card transactions totaled 449.9 trillion yuan (US$72.6 trillion) last year, it said in a statement yesterday, adding that about 48 percent of retail sales were paid through bank cards, up from 4.7 percent in 2002.
Extra competition will mean better service and more convenience for consumers, the People’s Bank of China said.
Under the rules, institutions applying for clearing licenses must have at least 1 billion yuan of registered capital. Foreign firms must set up Chinese units and get licenses if they provide such services for domestic clients.
The State Council said that, while a license is not required for firms clearing foreign currency-denominated cross-border transactions, overseas companies will need to register with Chinese banking regulators.
Established in 2002 in Shanghai by the State Council and the central bank with shareholders including major Chinese banks, UnionPay has more than 4.6 billion bank cards in circulation, with a network across more than 150 countries, according to its Web site.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day