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UnionPay expands merchant footprint in Europe

UnionPay expands merchant footprint in Europe

(20 October 2017 – Greece) China’s UnionPay has announced a partnership with Greece’s largest banking group, Piraeus Bank, that will allow its cardholders to make purchase from 50,000 merchants across Greece.

The roll-out, which is expected to go live by the end of 2017, will mean these point of sale (POS) terminals also accept no-PIN no-signature small-sum payment with UnionPay cards. This is the first time that UnionPay mobile QuickPass service is launched in Southern Europe.

UnionPay International said it has reached cooperation with all the four major banks in Greece. It is expected that within this year, the card will be accepted at almost all ATMs and over 80 percent of POS terminals in the country.

According to the Chinese company, in Europe, UnionPay is accepted at more than 2.3 million merchants across 39 countries and regions. The UnionPay-accepting merchants in Europe take up half of all the merchants that accept bankcards. Recently, UnionPay International also cooperated with Global Blue to further upgrade its tax-refund service in Europe. The two jointly expand the Early Tax Refund service from countries like Germany, Italy and the UK to France. With this service, cardholders are able to use UnionPay credit cards as guarantee after shopping, and directly get tax refund in-store or at the downtown outlets of Global Blue.

In view of the change of customers' payment habits, UnionPay International said it was “speeding up to roll-out its Mobile QuickPass service outside mainland China.”

Currently, more than 600,000 POS terminals outside the Chinese Mainland accept UnionPay Mobile QuickPass, covering over 10 countries and regions, including Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, Canada and Russia.

During this year's Chinese National Day Holiday, the transaction number of UnionPay Mobile QuickPass outside mainland China doubled year-on-year.

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