Barclays Bank Tanzania has today officially launched UnionPay International Acquiring service as part of the bank’s effort to offer better convenience to the UnionPay cardholders in the market.

The Bank’s Managing Director, Abdi Mohamed said in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the bank has introduced the service in the market that will allow the UnionPay cardholders to access their funds through Barclays ATMs and Point of Sale (POS) machine across the country. It is also an opportunity for merchants such as Hotels, Tour Operators and Retail stores to serve and do business with Union Pay cardholders that visit Tanzania for leisure or business.

“UnionPay has extended to 160 countries and regions, basically covering countries and regions that Chinese people often visit for travel, and Tanzania being one of them, we saw the opportunity and felt the need of offering this service to businesses and individuals that are constantly struggling to locate ATMs and or Point of Sale Machines (POS) that could cater for their needs. With our chain of more than 500 POS and 52 ATMs across the country, the service is expected to significantly benefit the customers. This is a milestone for our Bank and one that will see to benefit all clients that are holding our POS as well as the UnionPay cardholders across the world” he said.

Herman Botes from UnionPay says that they are extremely proud to be associate with Barclays Tanzania and value the partnership with the Barclays group as one the pioneers of banking on the African continent. “Today is a major achievement for the partnership and brings us one step closer in completing our roll of UnionPay card acceptance across all the African countries in which Barclays Africa has representation.”

UnionPay International, also known as UnionPay is a Chinese financial services corporation headquartered in Shanghai, China. It provides bank card services and a major card scheme in mainland China. Founded on March 26, 2002, China UnionPay is an association for China’s banking card industry, operating under the approval of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC, central bank of China). It is also the only interbank network in China that links all the ATMs of all banks throughout the country. It is also an EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale) network.