UnionPay International announced today that it has reached acceptance cooperation with City Bank, the largest POS acquirer in Bangladesh. According to the agreement, City Bank will enable its online merchants to accept UnionPay Online Payment service by the first half of 2019; UnionPay will be accepted online for the first time in Bangladesh. The Bank will also enable all of its POS terminals to accept UnionPay cards progressively, and some of its merchants will support UnionPay QR code payment too. Cai Jianbo, CEO of UnionPay International, and Mashrur Arefin, Additional Managing Director of City Bank, signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organization.

Bangladesh is an important part of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor and a node country in the South Asia in the “Belt and Road Initiative”. With the deepening of cooperation between China and Bangladesh, China has become Bangladesh's largest trading partner and investment source country, while Bangladesh is China's third largest trading partner in South Asia. In order to meet the growing cross-border payment needs of the two countries, UnionPay International is partnering with local major institutions. At present, about 50% of ATMs and thousands of merchants in Bangladesh accept UnionPay cards. It is expected that UnionPay’s ATM acceptance coverage will reach 70% at the end of this month.

Being the largest POS acquirer in Bangladesh, City Bank is a significant partner of UnionPay International in the country. The partnership between the two parties will realize UnionPay acceptance at all the merchants of City Bank, with some of the POS terminals supporting UnionPay mobile QuickPass or UnionPay QR code payment too. City Bank will also enable about 1,000 most popular online merchants to accept UnionPay cards. These merchants include airlines, hotels, retailers, etc. 

In recent years, UnionPay International has continued to expand the use of UnionPay cards in South Asia. In Sri Lanka, UnionPay cards are accepted at 45% of ATMs as well as merchants in cities such as Colombo, Kandy and Galle. In the Maldives, more than 90% of merchants and ATMs accept UnionPay cards. In Nepal, UnionPay is accepted at most ATMs and shopping malls, hotels, restaurants most frequented by tourists.