November 28 (SeeNews) - Serbia's central bank said it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China UnionPay to launch cooperation between the card payment systems of the two countries.
The cooperation will allow the acceptance of UnionPay cards in Serbia, and of Serbian DinaCard cards in the UnionPay network, the Serbian central bank, NBS, said in a statement on Monday.
With the MoU, the DinaCard system will gain access to cutting-edge payment technologies and standards and the retail network of UnionPay, consisting of over 41 million merchants and 2.1 million ATMs in over 160 countries globally, the NBS said.
China UnionPay, established in 2002, is by far the largest card payment system in the world, with over 6.5 billion issued cards, concentrating more than 54% of the global market, the Serbian central bank added.
In September, Serbian state-run lender Banka Postanska Stedionica said it is in talks on the usage of China UnionPay credit and debit cards.
Under the terms of the cooperation agreement, Bank of China and Banka Postanska Stedionica will jointly manage money transfers for the payment for services and goods of all Chinese companies active in the construction of big civil engineering projects in Serbia.