Elavon, a leading global payments provider and wholly-owned subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB), and China UnionPay, the bankcard association in China, have signed a binding agreement to enable acceptance for UnionPay's debit and credit cards at Elavon's merchants in the United States and Europe.
The deal also extends credit card acceptance to Elavon's Canadian merchants and will expand to include Latin America in the future.
The agreement extends Elavon's end-to-end processing control, giving merchants direct connectivity to UnionPay. It leverages Elavon's secure, world class international processing platform to provide merchants with the benefit of a single point of service for processing, funding, settlement and reporting for all Visa®, MasterCard®, American Express®, Discover® Network and UnionPay transactions.
"We are pleased to cooperate with Elavon," said Mr. Ruode Xu, president of UnionPay. "We believe that their vast merchant base and excellent quality of service will help drive global acceptance of China UnionPay."
China is expected to overtake the U.S. as the largest market for credit cards by 2020 with total cards expected to increase 11 percent a year as transaction value climbs 14 percent annually, according to MasterCard. UnionPay currently issues 2.6 billion cards worldwide.
Elavon's President and CEO, Mike Passilla, said, "Elavon is elated to support the expansion of China UnionPay card acceptance while promoting their international brand and supporting new opportunities to serve Chinese travelers - one of the fastest growing segments of the tourism market."