IMGCAP(1)]
China CITIC Bank next week plans to issue credit cards with MasterCard Worldwide's contactless PayPass application, a bank spokesperson tells CardLine Global. Consumers can use the contactless application for purchases of up to 100 yuan (US$14.70 or 10.70 euros). The card will have a magnetic stripe that consumers can use for larger purchases, the spokesperson says. The bank plans to issue the cards initially in Beijing and Shanghai. The bank expects consumers to have access to more than 1,000 contactless readers in convenience stories, coffee shops and other stores, but it was unclear whether those readers have been installed. The "fierce competition" among credit card issuers in China should lead to more contactless cards in the country as financial institutions look for any advantage to gain customers, Hua Zhang, a banking analyst in the China office of U.S.-based Celent LLC, tells CardLine Global. China CITIC Bank has issued at least 4.2 million credit cards. In July, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, commonly known as ICBC, began issuing Visa-branded credit cards that enable consumers to make contact and contactless transactions (CardLine Global, 18 July).
