China UnionPay, the leading bankcard association in the world, with over 3.2 billion issued cards, will now give Chinese shoppers with UnionPay cards an option to make online purchases at the websites of participating Discover Merchants while leveraging CardinalCommerce's technology neutral platform for a simple integration.
The UnionPay Online Payments (UPOP) service is UnionPay's e-Commerce solution and was developed in response to the needs of issuers to offer UnionPay cardholders a safe and secure way to make purchases online around the world and in the U.S. Chinese are the largest group of international students in the U.S. with an increase of over 20% in 2011.
UPOP will be available to Discover's merchants, early in 2013, using the Centinel Universal Merchant Platform through Cardinal. For a Discover merchant already using Centinel, it is as simple as placing the UPOP payment button on their checkout page to support a new payment option that enables consumers to pay using their UnionPay cards. For these merchants, no implementation required and no changes are necessary to existing settlement and reporting from Discover. It is a turnkey solution that makes it easy for merchants to be accessible to the 3.2 billion payment cards in the hands of Chinese shoppers.
"UnionPay's close relationship with Discover and Cardinal will provide a secure payment solution for UnionPay cardholders at U.S. on-line merchants," said Larry Wang, Vice President, International Division China UnionPay. "UnionPay fully expects that cardholders in China, as well as UnionPay cardholders currently in the United States, will take advantage of this expanded shopping opportunity."
"With the UnionPay new secure online payment solution, UPOP, participating Discover merchants can enjoy secure UnionPay online payments, ease of implementation, and consolidated settlement and reporting," says Joseph Hurley, Vice President, Global Business Development at Discover. "This is a natural evolution of our strategic alliance with UnionPay that's been in place since 2005, and something we are happy to support."
"We're excited to add UPOP as a payment option in Centinel across the Discover Network of retail merchants," said Janet Kapostasy, Vice President, Financial Institution Services, CardinalCommerce Corporation. "Our technology neutral platform lets Discover offer a seamless payment solution to their merchants while reaching billions of new customers, safely and securely."