Payment Card Newsflash #007

Dear Credit Card Merchants:

China UnionPay, also known as UnionPay or by its abbreviation, CUP, is the only domestic bank card organization in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Founded in March 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).
You may be confronted with these cards going forward as they are being marketed aggressively in the United States. Our credit card processor Elavon, Inc. is running them through their system as Discover settlements.

Recently, Elavon experienced issues when processing CUP transactions. So far, only one of our merchants has been affected with one transaction that did not get funded, even though it settled at the merchant’s location properly. Nevertheless, we suggest you do not accept any China UnionPay cards until further notice and until the issues are clearly resolved.