CUP Accepted via WorldPay
- The Chinese domestic card scheme China UnionPay has entered an acquisition partnership with UK’s number one PSP WorldPay. This agreement enables CUP cardholders to use their means of payment with all WorldPay e merchants. WorldPay was founded in 2010 by RBS; it is also one of the main cross border e commerce and acquirers worldwide.
- The UK-born PSP becomes the largest online CUP acceptor outside of China, covering the US and all Europe –except for Germany and Ireland– or an overall number of 40 countries. A recent agreement with the m payment platform BOKU has also increased to 75 the number of payment methods provided by WorldPay to the online websites.
- WorldPay provides its e-merchants with direct access to the Chinese CUP cardholders segment. The Chinese middle class should have increased from 35 to 100 million households between 2006 and 2016, and include one million millionaire in dollars. The acquirer intends to take advantage of this growing purchasing power as well as of the increasing interest of Chinese customers in foreign products. Also, this agreement coincides with the approach of the London Olympic Games and WorldPay holds 50% market shares in the UK face-to-face payments market.
- China UnionPay’s implantation in the UK started, in August 2009 when the interbank network LINK allowed its cardholders withdraw cash from its ATMs. In June 2010, some WorldPay’s physical acceptors started accepting CUP too (starting with the large scale retailer Selfridges), using Streamline (now WorldPay) provided terminals.