政府允许Visa和万事达国内支付
Govt allows Visa, MasterCard
6月1日起，包括Visa和万事达在内的全球银行卡运营商可以申请结算中国国内支付的许可。
Global bank card operators, including Visa and MasterCard, can seek licenses to clear domestic Chinese payments starting Monday.
此前，所有人民币支付都必须通过中国银联完成结算。中国银联是由中国央行建立的一个支付网络，目前归85家银行所有，其中多数是国有控股银行。
Previously, all renminbi payments had to be cleared through China UnionPay, a network created by the central bank and now owned by 85 mostly State-owned banks.
业内专家表示，从中国银联手中争夺市场份额仍是外国竞争者面临的巨大挑战。根据Datamonitor的数据，中国银联是中国80%借记卡使用的支付方式，2014年其交易量占了交易总额的72%。
Industry experts said foreign players still face big challenges in trying to win market share from UnionPay, the settlement network used by 80% of debit cards accounting for 72 % of total transaction value in 2014, according to Datamonitor.