How did UnionPay become the global debit card king?

In 2022, China’s UnionPay overtook Visa to become the world’s most popular provider of debit cards, according to a report by payments industry research firm The Nilson Report. UnionPay, a state-owned financial services firm based in Shanghai, managed to corner just over 40% of the global market, whereas Visa, the next-biggest player, provided 38.78%, with Mastercard at 21%.

This is a remarkable feat for a firm that, just over a decade ago, held a negligible share of the world market. Meanwhile, between 2011 and 2021, Visa’s share of debit card transactions fell from four out of every five transactions to fewer than two out of every five.

There were 624.86 billion transactions made using various credit, debit, and prepaid cards from Visa, UnionPay, Mastercard, American Express, and other major bank card providers in 2022. Debit cards accounted for 63.8% of these.

UnionPay’s cards are currently accepted in 181 countries and regions across the world, and the company issues cards in 79 of those countries. The firm often achieves this by partnering with local or regional institutions. Its global market push in recent years has focused on countries with underdeveloped payments infrastructure, such as Myanmar, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But its rise to prominence as one of the largest bank card groups in the world was predicated on its ability to build a monopoly within China, for which China was found to have violated WTO rules on market access back in 2012, in a victory for the U.S., which brought the case to arbitration there. Even as recently as 2017, UnionPay only accounted for 0.5% of the global market outside of China.

While UnionPay has clearly come a long way in recent years, so far it is only on this one metric of debit card transactions in which the company has taken a narrow lead globally. As the report from Nilson highlights, Visa still ranks number one with 38.7% of market share when it comes to overall debit and credit card transactions, with UnionPay still behind on 34%.

Nevertheless, it is increasingly a two-horse race, with the third giant, Mastercard, dropping to below a quarter of all transactions, and smaller firms accounting for the rest. UnionPay is set to continue its rapid expansion outside China in the coming years, even as its main American competitors continue to struggle to enter China’s domestic market.

Meanwhile, many Chinese consumers make no use of debit cards at all, preferring mobile payment systems offered by internet giants Alibaba and Tencent.

Additional links and data:

• UnionPay Topples Visa to Become World’s Most Used Debit Card in 2022, Nielsen Says / Yicai Global
• 首次！中国银联，超越Visa / 央视财经
• Nilson Report | Research | The World’s Top Card Issuers and Merchant Acquirers / Nilson
• DS413 China — Certain Measures Affecting Electronic Payment Services / WTO
• China’s Fight with Visa and MasterCard Goes Global / CUHK Business School
• China: UnionPay, Visa, Mastercard market share / Statista