Barclays Partners With Chinese Card Issuer

Pauline Dikuelo | Monday March 6, 2017 15:20

China Union Pay or UPI is the largest card issuer in China and has issued over five billion cards there.

It is a card of choice for many Chinese nationals and other countries in Asia with on average at least one Chinese national owning one UPI card.

The service is already offered in other Barclays countries across the continent.

According to Barclays Bank Botswana CEO, Reinette van der Merwe, through offering this service, they are putting themselves ahead of the competition by providing inclusive payment solutions as the payment will go beyond traditional swiping.  “Barclays together with our partners at UPI are increasing access to payment solutions to more customers, especially Chinese nationals. 

These customers want to pay with the card of choice wherever they go,” she said. Last year, Barclays launched a mobile POS machine that allows business people to accept payments from anywhere there is a mobile network in the country.

The bank also went live with E-Commerce solutions for payments with Botswana Unified Revenue Services (BURS) and also introduced value added services, which include cash back, currency conversions and money transfer.

Speaking during the launch, Chinese Ambassador to Botswana, Zhao Yanbo said inclusive banking is critical as it caters for everybody who has a desire to access banking anywhere in the world as they travel for business or pleasure.  “I hope that Barclays and other financial institutions will keep on exploring other services and products to offer to Chinese nationals,” he said.

According to Zhao, the partnership came at the right time as Chinese nationals are now more than ever travelling for business and pleasure mostly to the SADC region, which has beautiful attractions.

In addition he said with payment solutions like acceptance of UPI cards in Barclays POS machines this will form part of attraction.

According to China Outbound Tourism Organisation, in 2015, Chinese travellers spent €195 billion, which the ambassador said is a clear indicator that availing the right and relevant payment solutions to Chinese customers cannot be bad for business.

Botswana and China’s relationship dates back to 1975 with China now being Botswana’s third largest trade partner.