MasterCard partners Chinas commercial banks to boost online payments

The partnership has been agreed in an inaugural industry symposium held in Ningbo, China, where 100 reps from over 40 joint-equity commercial banks, city commercial banks, and rural commercial banks across China were brought together. The focus of the symposium centered on the impact of China’s outbound travel market on commercial banks, looking at how banks could build on the growing outbound travel segment to innovate and develop cross-border payment products.

The number of bank cards issued and the volume of bank card transactions has grown steadily in China throughout the year, according to the 2015 Payment Industry Overview, a report authored by the People’s Bank of China. Concurrently, the volume of payment clearing and settlements through commercial banks has seen an associated, rapid growth, increasingly making up a significant share of the banking business with outbound travel forming the bulk of these transactions.

Travelers from China made up the largest source of outbound tourists in the Asia Pacific region, reaching 120 million (a year-on-year growth of 17%), according to the 2015 MasterCard Asia Pacific Destinations Index. For commercial banks, this is an important opportunity to create high value, customized cross-border payment products, diversifying their products, enhancing competitiveness and opening up new revenue streams.