(11 November 2015 – China) A senior official from People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said it will not implement strict licensing restrictions on overseas bank card providers seeking to enter the country's US$7 trillion (A$10 trillion) card payment market.
At a conference this week, Fan Yifei, a vice governor at PBOC said: “We will actively and cautiously open up China's card payment market according to laws and regulations, and encourage fair competition,” Fan said.
Overseas companies including Visa and MasterCard, have been vying for entry into the lucrative cards market, which has been predicted to become the world’s largest in the next five years, for over a decade.
Earlier this year, China's cabinet announced that the country would allow foreign firms to apply to the central bank for licences to operate bank card clearing businesses from June 1.
The state controlled group, UnionPay Co, currently has a monopoly on all yuan payment cards issued and used in the country.
In 2014, China’s bank card consumer transactions totalled 42.38 trillion yuan (A$9.4 trillion) according to data from PBOC, an annual growth of around 33 percent.