UnionPay International announced today that it has deepened its cooperation with Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), the largest bank in Kenya. First, the two will jointly issue the first UnionPay card with the mobile QuickPass function in Kenya this month, supporting the upgrade of the local payment industry through product enhancement. Second, with the official website of Kenya Airways supporting UnionPay Online Payment, hundreds of online merchants will be enabled to accept UnionPay by next January.

At present, 90% of merchants and 75% of ATMs in Kenya accept UnionPay, and KCB has enabled ATMs and merchants in Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda to accept UnionPay cards. Over the past few years, mobile payment is booming in Kenya. In this context, UnionPay International extends its cooperation with the Bank to broader fields including card issuance, NFC and mobile payment.

This time, the two sides have agreed to issue UnionPay chip cards on a large scale in the next five years, facilitating the chip migration of the local payment industry by taking UnionPay’s advantage in products development, chip standard and acceptance network. Moreover, all the cards to be issued support the QuickPass function; cardholders can make payments by tapping the cards at the over 10 million QuickPass terminals worldwide.This means that cardholders can not only pay with these cards in 162 countries and regions, but also make payments by tapping their cards safely and easily at over 10 million QuickPass terminals. This will drive KCB and other major banks to carry out the contactless transformation of their acceptance network, laying a solid foundation for promoting mobile QuickPass in the future.

Currently, cardholders can conveniently use UnionPay cards in 48 African countries. Multiple UnionPay card products have been issued in Mauritius, Seychelles, Tanzania and Congo (Kinshasa). In the first half of 2017, Africa-issued UnionPay cards are used in over 50 countries and regions. The transaction made in Africa with these UnionPay cards doubled year-on-year, showing that UnionPay cards are favored by more and more local consumers.