Banks in China will issue a new type of integrated circuits (IC) cards to replace traditional cards with magnetic stripes before 2015, Xu Luode, president of China UnionPay, said at an economic forum, Shanghai Securities News reported on Monday.
Demand for Filipino maids on the riseThe new cards can store more information, and have been reported to have a higher security level, the newspaper said.All 2.3 million networking merchants across China will install required equipment by the end of next year to coordinate the issue of IC bankcards, Xu said.
UnionPay has 220 associate members in China, the report said, and 2.3 billion bankcards have been issued to 700 million clients. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China issued 5 million IC bankcards this year, and it's the first bank that put the new cards in use.
In addition, Xu said that People's Bank of China (PBOC), UnionPay and telecom operators have reached an agreement on building a cell phone payment system. PBOC officials told the media earlier this year that the central bank would pay more attention to promoting the mobile payment business in the future.
