China UnionPay is one of the largest payment brand with more than 2 billion cards performing over USD$1.8 trillion in transactions in 2010. As China's banking card issuers start for PBOC chip migration, there is a growing need to ensure a number of leading chip operating systems are available. To that end, China UnionPay has joined the MULTOS Consortium to signal the endorsement of MULTOS as one of the technologies for Chinese chip card issuing.

Joining as a Partner Member in the MULTOS Consortium, China UnionPay expands the growing member base of the group that includes payment schemes, silicon vendors, secure software developers, card manufacturers, personalization system solution providers and integrators across the globe.

Stuart Attwood, Commercial Director of The MULTOS Consortium commented, "We welcome China UnionPay into the MULTOS Consortium and recognize the importance of now including among our members, the world's fastest growing payment scheme and the significance this brings for all our members with business activity in the Chinese market. We look forward to UnionPay's participation in the consortium activities, and the growth of MULTOS-enabled card technology being deployed in China."