This service allows mainland Chinese tourists to pay for goods and services with their CUP cards at merchants served by Global Payments. The extension of the CUP service to those five markets marks another major milestone for Global Payments' CUP card acceptance program, which was started 6 years ago in Hong Kong and has since grown successfully into Macau, Malaysia and Taiwan.

With more than 2.1 billion CUP cards in circulation and the rising number of Mainland Chinese travelling around Asia, the new service empowers Global Payments merchants in Brunei, the Maldives, the Philippines, Singapore, and Sri Lanka to capture the rising spending trends of the mainland Chinese visitors, who presently pay mostly with cash. Merchants can simply add the CUP card acceptance functionality to their Global Payments' point-of-sale terminals through a simple and free programming of their terminals.

Commenting on the launch, President - Global Payments Asia Pacific, Mr. Ian Courtnage, said, "Global Payments is the largest regional card merchant acquirer of China UnionPay by merchant base, and we are proud to extend our regional expertise in processing CUP card transactions to more markets across Asia Pacific. China is contributing significantly to outbound tourism in many Asian destinations and our merchants in those markets can now welcome more mainland Chinese tourists to their establishments by accepting CUP card payments. CUP acquiring adds to our broad range of card types that we already support and this new service enhances Global Payments' one-stop-shop card processing strategy for merchants."

"We have a recognized partner in Global Payments with a reputation for providing high quality and innovative payment processing services. We are delighted to expand the acceptance of CUP cards to more Asian markets through Global Payments' extensive distribution network across Asia Pacific. This further expands our strategic relationship with Global Payments and the new servicservice will offer added payment convenience for the growing number of Mainland Chinese travelers," said Mr. Cai Jianbo, Executive Vice President of CUP.