Visa Inc, the world's biggest card payments network, is gearing up to participate in yuan-denominated business in China, as regulators prepare to release rules facilitating foreignplayers to enter domestic market possibly as soon as July.

 

Jeff Liao, country manager of Visa Information Systems (Shanghai) Co Ltd, said the company is yet to apply to the central bank for any kind of RMB license.

 

Chinese laws require foreign credit card companies to co-brand with Chinese partners to support their card services, or to process interbank point-of-sale transactions.

 

New rules on how foreign players can participate in the domestic payment and clearing systemare expected to be announced at the end of July, but when they will become effective is stillunknown, according to sources familiar with the matter.

 

Visa has set a target that more than half of its global business will be generated from marketsother than the United States by 2015.

 

About 60 percent of Visa's global payments come from debit cards. And in China, growth of debit card payments is faster than that of credit cards, according to Liao.

 

Visa has signed cooperation agreements with 25 commercial lenders in China, and there are80 million dual-branded, dual-currency Visa cards in circulation, even without access to yuan-denominated business, Liao said.

 

In 2010, Visa bought CyberSource Corporation, a leading provider of electronic payment, riskmanagement, and payment security solutions that is currently registered in Shanghai.

 

Visa debit cards continued to account for most transactions at merchants, with a share of 39.3percent, followed by Visa credit cards with nearly 22.8 percent.

 

Liao added that if the domestic payment market could be opened to foreign players such as Visa, the company could bring 50 years of experience and products to the market.He used the example of V.me a new service from Visa that lets people shop without sharingtheir card account information with a seller during payments as a product which has beenlaunched in many markets, and can be used worldwide and connected with global merchants, which could be introduced to China.
 

 

Liao said Visa's expertise in online transaction security could also be used in China, such as onverification and providing security solution for online traders. 

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