This latest agreement has increased the number of international joint cards to four, in addition to the existing VISA, MasterCard, and JCB brands. According to the terms of the agreement, BC Card will have the exclusive rights to issue the Zhong Guo Tong card for three years in Korea.

Members using the new card will benefit in terms of user convenience. For example, there are as many as 600,000 Zhong Guo Tong-affiliated merchants in China, surpassing by a large margin the number for major international credit cards such as VISA and MasterCard (50,000).

Vice President Choi said, “As of the end of August, the total sales revenue from BC Card members in China has increased 47.3 percent from the same period last year. China’s share in total global sales is already 11.4 percent, followed closely by that of the United States.”

The company, he said, will initially target the employees of Korean companies doing business in China, estimated to be more than 1 million. In addition, it will extend its marketing effort to Korean students registered in Chinese universities and other educational institutions, and also business travelers. By 2009 it will have issued more than 500,000 Zhong Guo Tong cards to 4 million plus Korean tourists to China.

To increase its customer base, BC Card will target potential card users in their 30s and 40s, the major age group with the highest spending propensity, while making inroads into the corporate card market in China. In addition, the company contemplated issuing joint marketing cards on the occasion of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Prior to the latest agreement, BC Card had signed a memorandum of understanding with UnionPay in 2004, followed by an arrangement to share each other’s credit card networks in 2005. In April 2006, BC Card began offering a service to its card members to use ATMs in China for deposit withdrawals and cash advances.

* About China UnionPay

China UnionPay is the only domestic credit card organization in China under the ratification of the People’s Bank of China (China’s Central Bank), and was established in 2002 for the specific purposes of setting up a credit card network, brand sharing, and common credit card processing operations.

Starting 2003, the Central Bank required all credit cards issued within China to show the UnionPay brand (CUP) mark, and mandated that the card be accepted in all member merchants and ATMs.

Currently, more than 190 Chinese financial institutions including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China, the Bank of China, and the China Construction Bank have issued more than 1.2 billion UnionPay cards.