Business Standard

UnionPay International and Pine Labs today announced a partnership to create merchant and consumer awareness about acceptance of UnionPay debit and credit cards in India. As a result of this partnership, UnionPay cardholders all over the world who travel to India will be able to transact at all Pine Labs point-of-sale terminals in over 3,000 cities across diverse sectors - electronics, food & beverage, hospitality, fashion, pharmacy, telecom and airlines.

"An estimated 100 million Chinese tourists travel internationally every year. The number of tourists travelling to India is growing steadily at 30% annually. UnionPay has realized acceptance at 90% of ATMs in India, and are now eager to improve our merchant acceptance coverage. We have seen tourists spend in hospitality, restaurant and organized retail sectors. Pine Labs' network is strong across all these sectors in India. We are happy to, therefore, extend the Pine Labs network access in India to our customers," said Liu Heng, General Manager of UnionPay International Hong Kong Branch.

Kush Mehra, President, Payments Business, Pine Labs said, "We are excited to partner with UnionPay International in facilitating and enhancing payment experience for Chinese tourists traveling to India. Other than ease of payment in offline stores, UnionPay customers will have access to retail offers from over 100 brands that are part of our network today. This partnership will also benefit our partners in the hotel segment."

About Pine Labs

Pine Labs is incorporated in Singapore and has its largest operations in India. It is a merchant platform company that provides financing and last-mile retail transaction technology. Pine Labs' offerings are currently used by over 1,00,000 merchants in 3,700 cities and towns across India and Malaysia. Its investors include Sequoia Capital, PayPal, Temasek, Actis Capital and Altimeter Capital. To know more, please visit http://www.pinelabs.com
About UnionPay International

UnionPay International (UPI) is a subsidiary of China UnionPay focused on the growth and support of UnionPay's global business. In partnership with more than 1800 institutions worldwide, UnionPay International has enabled card acceptance in 170 countries and regions with issuance in 48 countries and regions. UnionPay International provides high quality, cost effective and secure cross-border payment services to the world's largest cardholder base and ensures convenient local services to a growing number of global UnionPay cardholders and merchants.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)