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Limited seats available, first come first served. Let us journey together toward sustainability! [Click to register] Source: Beijing Business Today. Visa's approval to prepare a domestic bank card clearing institution has landed with great significance. Following American Express and Mastercard NetsUnion, China may soon welcome its first wholly foreign-owned bank card clearing player. In the view of analysts, this news, on the one hand, gives Visa the prospect of further deepening its presence in the Chinese market through this "admission ticket"; on the other hand, it marks the steady and deepening opening of the bank card clearing market.

First wholly foreign-owned bank card clearing institution

On October 13, the People's Bank of China's administrative licensing information disclosure for bank card clearing institutions was updated, granting Visa Information Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Visa Company") approval to prepare a bank card clearing institution. It is reported that the company is an enterprise legal person established by Visa within China, with a registered capital of 1 billion yuan, and is a wholly foreign-owned company. Specifically, a bank card clearing institution establishes bank card clearing business rules and builds clearing systems to provide information transfer and fund clearing services for card-issuing institutions and acquiring institutions. It sits at the central hub of the bank card industry, not directly issuing cards to consumers or accepting card payments. Its core role is to connect transaction links between different banks, ensure that cross-institutional bank card payment transactions are completed safely and orderly, and unify relevant business standards and risk rules.

Currently, there are already three licensed bank card clearing institutions in China: China UnionPay, American Express, and Mastercard NetsUnion, with licenses approved in 2019, 2020, and 2023 respectively. Among them, American Express was established as a joint venture between American Express and LianLian DigiTech, while Mastercard NetsUnion is a joint venture between Mastercard and NetsUnion Clearing. In fact, Visa itself is also one of the world's well-known card organizations. However, its previous main business covered cross-border transaction clearing for foreign currency cards and it did not hold a domestic RMB clearing qualification. If it ultimately operates smoothly, Visa may become the first wholly foreign-owned clearing institution approved to operate within China.

It is worth noting that the People's Bank of China approved the "preparation" of the bank card clearing institution this time, not a formal license. Wang Pengbo, chief analyst at Botong Consulting, explained to a Beijing Business Today reporter that during the preparation period, the People's Bank of China will fully review the contributors, actual controllers, and others, and the preparation approval does not mean that an opening license will definitely be obtained in the end. If regulators have requirements regarding equity, actual control, or security, Visa Company can still adjust its equity during the preparation stage. According to relevant procedures, Visa Company needs to complete preparation work within one year and then submit an opening application. Only after the People's Bank of China, together with the National Financial Regulatory Administration, approves it will the Bank Card Clearing Business License be issued.

Domestic business expected to see a leap

For Visa, obtaining preparation approval is of extraordinary significance for deepening its presence in the Chinese market. As Visa CEO McInerney said: "Visa's approval to prepare a bank card clearing institution is an important milestone in Visa's long-term commitment to serving the Chinese market. We look forward to actively carrying out follow-up work in accordance with the relevant regulatory provisions of the People's Bank of China, so as to strive to begin operations in China as soon as possible."

For a long time, although Visa has leveraged its global network advantages to deepen its domestic cross-border foreign currency card clearing business, it has never been able to independently build local clearing infrastructure, and it has obvious shortcomings in merchant acceptance networks, bank cooperation ecosystems, local scenario adaptation, and data and disaster recovery system construction. By comparison, the local clearing institution China UnionPay firmly occupies the mainstream domestic bank card clearing market; the domestic operating entities of American Express and Mastercard, also among the "three major card organizations," have already obtained opening licenses and laid out their businesses ahead of others.

The latest data from the People's Bank of China show that in 2025, a total of 614.785 billion bank card transactions occurred nationwide, amounting to 963.60 trillion yuan. Under huge market demand, the necessity of Visa's entry has further increased. Su Xiaorui, a senior researcher at Suxi Zhiyan, said that Visa's approval to prepare a bank card clearing institution means it has placed a key piece on the domestic RMB clearing market, both opening a domestic RMB clearing channel through this admission ticket and showing that it has obtained the qualification to compete on the same stage with UnionPay, American Express, Mastercard, and others in the domestic payment market. Its domestic business is expected to see a leap afterward. In addition, its entry into China's domestic clearing market has important strategic value for its own global business map and long-term growth. "After beginning domestic operations, Visa will have the opportunity to support Chinese domestic clients in issuing Visa-branded payment products that can be accepted within China, and further promote the development of digital payments in China," McInerney said.

Speaking of Visa's next moves, Wang Pengbo predicted that it will first conduct business around its own advantages, mainly targeting scenarios such as cross-border payments for foreigners coming to China, B2B receipts and payments for foreign trade enterprises, and high-end credit cards. However, the fierce competition Visa faces cannot be ignored. In Wang Pengbo's view, the fundamentals of the domestic bank card clearing market have long been solidified, with UnionPay firmly occupying the local mainstream and the remaining incremental space for new entrants already very limited. Combined with the year-on-year decline in outbound tourism consumption this year, the cross-border payment track itself is already a red ocean. Taken together, it will be difficult for Visa to achieve large-scale breakthroughs in the domestic retail payment market, and it can only seek differentiated survival space in cross-border niche scenarios.

Bringing in diverse market entities

The industry widely agrees that Visa's approval to prepare a bank card clearing institution as a new player sends a particularly notable signal in terms of financial opening-up. Since the State Council issued the Decision on Implementing Access Management for Bank Card Clearing Institutions in 2015, officially launching reform of access to the bank card clearing market, the People's Bank of China has continued to advance market-oriented and law-based opening-up in this field, successively issuing the 2016 version of the Administrative Measures for Bank Card Clearing Institutions (hereinafter referred to as the Measures), and jointly revising and releasing the 2025 new version of the Measures with the National Financial Regulatory Administration. In the policy interpretation, the responsible person of the People's Bank of China clearly stated that the new rules adhere to high-level opening-up, apply the same standards to similar institutions, consolidate the institutional guarantee for opening the clearing market, coordinate development and security, and carry out market access in an orderly manner in accordance with the law. "It can be seen that regulators have consistently adhered to the principle of treating domestic and foreign capital equally and approving one institution once it matures, gradually opening up licenses in the clearing field. In essence, this is about introducing diverse market entities under controllable risks, which not only enriches the supply of the domestic bank card clearing market and brings card issuers, merchants, and consumers richer product and service choices, but also uses benign competition to push local clearing institutions to continuously refine products and optimize services, driving the upgrading of the entire payment and clearing infrastructure and better serving the real economy and cross-border trade and economic exchanges," Wang Pengbo said.

Of course, overall, different institutions face different challenges. Su Xiaorui further pointed out that China's bank card clearing market has now formed a pattern of "one superpower and multiple strong players," with China UnionPay currently holding a dominant position. International players are entering one after another, but their impact on the market landscape is limited. The challenge for new entrants lies in how to seek differentiated survival and development space in China's rapidly changing payment ecosystem. "Foreign institutions still cannot simply copy mature overseas models. They must definitely carry out localization transformation, focus on cross-border niche tracks, deeply bind with domestic banks and acquiring partners, control the pace of investment, and avoid blindly covering the full retail market," Wang Pengbo suggested.