Pulse Makes An Asia Move

  Domestic electronic funds transfer networks traditionally have stayed out of international card transactions. But two networks have started to extend their reach.
  Discover Financial Services, for example, is enabling Chinese visitors to conduct PIN-debit card payments in the United States through its Pulse network. Moreover, NYCE in December announced continued growth in debit card payments switched through its network from Canadian visitors.
  China UnionPay's 840 million cardholders now can access the 4 million U.S. Pulse payment terminals and ATMs. The deal also calls for the 50 million Discover credit cards issued domestically to be accepted in UnionPay merchant locations in China by this summer.
  In early December, the first Chinese debit card transaction initiated in the United States switched through Pulse was for the purchase of a tie at a Macy's department store in New York City. Ning Su, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, initiated the transaction.
  Chinese visitors are the fastest-growing group of travelers to the United states, with 360,000 visitors this year, according to Roger Hochschild, Discover president. In 2004, Americans made 1.3 million visits to China, according to the China National Tourist Office.
  Most card payments from Chinese visitors to the United States are expected to be debit payments, says Hochschild. The reciprocal agreement with UnionPay represents an alternative to Visa and MasterCard, he says.
  Metavante Corp.'s NYCE network, meanwhile, announced in December that it had switched 1 million Canadian debit card transactions in the United States since September 2004, when it launched a program with Acxsys Corp., the technical backbone of Canada's PIN-debit system, to switch Canadian debit transactions initiated in the States.
  Steve Rathgaber, NYCE president, expects the Canadian program to continue to drive volume growth this year.
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