China UnionPay earlier this month announced transit card interoperability for the city of Guangdong’s Zhongshan Links and Macau’s Macau Quick Pass cards, opening up intercity travel for the two cities’ residents.
Macau Tong Ltd. and the Industrial and Commercial bank of China Ltd. issue the respective Macau Quick Pass and Zhongshan Links cards in collaboration with UnionPay, China’s national card brand and network.
Consumers use the all-purpose smart cards in their respective cities to pay fares on public buses and ferries and to make small retail purchases, a UnionPay spokesperson tells PaymentsSource.
Guangdong is biggest city in Mainland China closest to Macau, which is a Special Administrative Region similar to Hong Kong.
Both cards come with a smart chip linked to a prepaid transit account and a magnetic stripe for regular retail purchases, according to the spokesperson. Cardholders already could use the mag-stripe for retail purchases in both cities.
“Now people [also may] be able to use their chip function for fare payments on ferries, buses, parking areas and toll booths in their neighboring cities,” she adds, explaining the interoperability entailed accounting for different fare and toll-charging systems in the two cities.
The interoperability agreement provides a payment service that promotes regional trade and economic intercity exchanges, Weidong Wang, an analyst from China-based iResearch Consulting Group, tell PaymentsSource.
“The city-to-city financial-payment infrastructure would become more convenient, and the overall financial payment system would become more transparent and integrated,” says Wang.
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