The Obama administration filed two trade cases Wednesday against China, covering electronic payments and steel duties, reports Bloomberg News.
The payment processing case involves companies such as Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. The administration first considered taking legal action in March (
China does not let foreign companies issue their own bankcards denominated in its currency, build networks to support such cards or process transactions. Foreign banks must cobrand with Chinese operators to supply these services and send payments through the country's only payments network, China UnionPay.
Those rules run counter to the pledge China made when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001 to open up its credit and debit card market to foreign processing companies by the end of 2006, according to the U.S. complaint.
China "did not make any commitment regarding the supply of payments and clearing services by foreign nonfinancial institutions" when it joined the trade arbiter, the Chinese government said at a 2007 World Trade Organization meeting.
