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China UnionPay (CUP) issued 10.21 million credit cards in the first six months of this year in China, up nearly 200 percent on the same period of 2006. Chinese newswire Xinhua reports that the national bankcard scheme also issued 127 million debit cards in the first six months of 2007, up 113.7 percent year-on-year.
The expansion in credit and debit card issuing by CUP has mainly been driven by the acceleration in consumer spending, Xinhua quoted CUP Assistant President Yan Qiang as saying. Credit card marketing strategies, such as gifts for making card payments, also contributed to the surge in card issuance, Yan said. The CUP credit cards are not affiliated with either Visa or MasterCard.
China's total sales of consumer goods reached 4.2 trillion yuan (US$555 billion) in the first half of 2007, up 15.4 percent on last year, according to official figures.
During the first half of this year, 95,700 stores were connected to the CUP network, Xinhua says. Also, 162,500 point-of-sale terminals were added to the network, while 9,300 ATMs were connected.
Shanghai Daily says that China UnionPay currently has 616,700 merchants and nearly 1 million POS terminals on its network.
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