MasterCard Says China Picked It to Develop Card Processing Project

MasterCard International claims to have won the bidding to develop and run the first of six projects in China aimed at improving credit card and debit card transaction processing there.

The New York-based association says it has received exclusive rights to the Guangzhou Golden Card project. The project will utilize MasterCard's new switching center in Guangzhou and serve the neighboring cities of Beijing and Shanghai, the card association said.

As the first stage of the initiative, MasterCard is immediately implementing its international card authorization service. Authorizations for domestic credit and debit card transactions are scheduled to begin in February 1996.

"It's a move toward in-country processing," said a MasterCard spokeswoman. "In the past, although we had equipment at member sites, transactions were still processed offshore. We will be training people locally so they can run with this."

MasterCard is dismissing a report in which Visa similarly claimed exclusive rights to the Guangzhou project. "They were in negotiations, but apparently nothing has come out of them yet," the MasterCard spokeswoman said. "Ours have come to fruition."

Visa maintains it has a presence in China and is working on the Golden Card project.

MasterCard's Card and Communications System, or CCS, is to support point of sale transactions for the first time in China. CCS will serve as the communications link between merchant locations, banks, and Banknet, MasterCard's global transaction processing network.

Sponsors for the five remaining projects, which will repeat the process for other provinces, have yet to be determined.

MasterCards were first accepted in China in 1981, and were first issued to Chinese consumers in 1987. There are currently six million MasterCards in the country.

In another international development, the New York-based card association said it will open an office in South Africa in June.

The opening, in Johannesburg, was prompted by what MasterCard termed "growth in activity and volumes and increasing potential in the southern Africa region."

The banks and others to be served by the office are in South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Mozambique, Namibia, Lesotho, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and the Indian Ocean islands of Mauritius, the Seychelles, and Madagascar.

The office will help MasterCard promote its ability to offer "more ways and more places to pay for goods and services and access to cash," said Angelo Letimier, a vice president in the company's Europe-Middle East- Africa region.

South Africa is the region's most developed economy, the executive said. Its "appeal as a tourist destination and increasingly global role in trade and industry will spur further growth in card usage and volumes," Mr. Letimier added.

MasterCard said it is the leading bank card brand in South Africa, with 1.2 million cards, 150,000 acceptance locations, and $4 billion of annual sales volume.

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