People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has approved a licence to American Express affiliate Express (Hangzhou) Technology Service, to allow Amex-branded cards to be used in China.
Forming a joint-venture with china’s LianLian, AmEx becomes the first foreign card scheme to win direct access to China’s bank card market.
While the current domestic bank card is dominated by UnionPay and mobile payments market is dominated by Ant Financial and Tencent, various cards-giant like Visa are waiting for their approval to enter the Chinese card payments market.
American Express chairman and CEO Stephen Squeri says: “We are pleased to be the first foreign payments network allowed to build a network in mainland China. This is an important next step toward being able to bring the benefits and services of our global network to Chinese customers and expanding the ability of our global Card Members to use their American Express Cards in mainland China. We are also pleased to be working alongside LianLian, a long-term partner of American Express.”
