UATP merchants now can accept more than 300 alternative forms
of payment—including UnionPay, China's national card network—through a
partnership with Planet Payment, a United States-based multicurrency payment
processor. This opens up the opportunity for UATP merchants to capture Chinese
travelers' spend outside China, which Planet Payment senior vice president Paul
Levine said is estimated to reach $255.4 billion by 2025.
UnionPay's 2015 Asia/Pacific purchase volume
totaled $8.8 trillion, or 77 percent of the Asia/Pacific market, according to
July 2016 figures from The Nilson Report. Visa accounted for 13 percent,
MasterCard for 7 percent and American Express for 1 percent. In 2015, according
to The Nilson Report, UnionPay had the most combined commercial, consumer,
debit and prepaid cards in circulation, 5.4 billion, accounting for 30 percent
of worldwide market share. In comparison, Visa totaled 2.97 billion cards in
circulation, or 16 percent market share, and MasterCard had 1.57 billion cards,
or 9 percent market share.