UnionPay International announced today that it has signed a card-issuance agreement with PT Rintis Sejahtera (Rintis), the largest ATM switch network in Indonesia. According to the agreement, Rintis will promote its members to issue UnionPay chip cards in large scale in the next five years. It is another progress achieved by UnionPay in rolling-out its products through payment standard cooperation, after the chip card licensing agreement with the member institutions of Asian Payment Network (APN). Cai Jianbo, CEO of UnionPay International and Iwan Setiawan, President Director of Rintis attended the signing ceremony held in Jakarta.

APN comprises of 13 switch networks from 11 Asia-Pacific countries, and UnionPay is the sole supplier of its cross-border chip card standard. In October 2016, UnionPay signed chip card standard licensing agreement with 7 APN member institutions, including Rintis. This February, UnionPay International signed a card issuance agreement with BancNet, the switch network in the Philippines, launching the first card issuance project based on the APN chip card licensing. This time, UnionPay International collaborates with Rintis to promote the issuance of UnionPay chip cards in a wider scope in Southeast Asia.

“Supporting the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, UnionPay is willing to provide our expertise in payment network, products, services and technologies to participate in the industry upgrade in Southeast Asia, by taking part in the building of payment infrastructure and conducting payment standard cooperation.” Cai Jianbo said, based on the current collaboration framework, the two will deepen cooperation in payment innovation such as QR code payments in the future.

Currently, the majority of bankcards issued in Indonesia are magnetic stripe cards. This time, UnionPay International and Rintis have agreed to jointly promote the 60 member institutions of Rintis to change the magnetic stripe debit cards in circulation to UnionPay-PRIMA co-branded chip cards. This offers safer UnionPay chip card products to the local market, meeting Bank Indonesia’s demand for upgrading the local payment industry, as well as realizing large-scale issuance of UnionPay cards by the local banks to accelerate the localization of UnionPay’s business in Indonesia.

Iwan Setiawan said, Rintis team’s commitment and passion for the collaboration with UnionPay International has been getting stronger. Indonesia payment industry is upgrading, and the member banks of Rintis need to come up with more digital payment products including QR code-based solutions. We are looking to further our collaboration with UnionPay International in the area of payment innovation soon.

At present, UnionPay cards are accepted and issued in all the 10 ASEAN countries, and the localization of UnionPay business is accelerating. In Indonesia, UnionPay cards are accepted at over 95% of ATMs and about 70% of POS terminals, and it is very particularly convenient to use UnionPay cards in popular tourist destinations and key business districts such as Bali. Meanwhile, more than 1.3 million UnionPay cards are issued in Indonesia, including gold cards, platinum cards and diamond cards etc. More and more local residents are using UnionPay cards in their daily life and international travels.