The Chinese national payment system was founded in 2002 as an association of banks of the People’s Republic of China at the initiative of the State Council and the National Bank of China. It developed rapidly and gradually, working closely with about 2000 financial institutions in various states. Today China UnionPay through its subsidiary company, UnionPay International, operates practically on all the continents of the world and more than 6 billion bankcards of the system are used in 177 countries.
The national payment system UnionPay appeared in China in 2002 with the approval of the State Council and the People’s Bank of China (China’s central bank), with UnionPay’s head office in Shanghai.
Its main objective was to provide the Chinese population with access to a full range of bank card services without dependence on similar foreign companies. The task was successfully accomplished: China UnionPay, established in 2002, became the undisputed leader in the domestic market within just 2-3 years, practically ousting foreign card systems from circulation in the country.
Interestingly, any Chinese bank customer becomes a China UnionPay customer by default. This is possible because literally every account in all 165 banks in the PRC is linked to the system immediately after opening.
To provide tourists abroad and foreigners in China with easy access to banking services, the company entered the international arena by creating a subsidiary, UnionPay International, in 2012. It is this subsidiary that enters into contracts for issuing and servicing cards abroad.
Already in 2015, it was recognized as the largest system in the world, as it overtook its competitors in terms of transaction volume. However, there is one nuance. Most of the transactions came from the country’s residents themselves because there are practically no foreign payment systems in China.
According to the company itself, today its cards are accepted in 180 countries, including Southeast Asian countries, Russia, the United States, Canada, as well as the United Kingdom and Germany. The cards are issued in 70 countries and so far more than 150 million have been issued in total.
What is UnionPay?
UnionPay is the name of an international payment system created in China in 2002. If counted by the number of cards issued, it is one of the most popular in the world. According to the research company RBR, UnionPay accounted for 45% of cards in circulation at the end of 2019 (more than 90% of this number is in China).
The initial badge of the UnionPay service was executed in a bright red, blue, and green color palette, just like the one we all can see today. The colors were set on the background, making up three diagonal elements, which formed a parallelogram with rounded angles. On this figure there were two white hieroglyphs, standing for the name of the company.
The logotype of UnionPay was designed at the time of the establishment of the company and practically has not changed since then. It consists of a rectangle with rounded corners bearing three broad vertical stripes and the name UnionPay in Latin and Chinese script.
The colours of the stripes are red, blue and blue-turquoise. In China, the red colour symbolizes the Phoenix bird and represents the element of fire and the strive for upward motion. The Blue colour is a symbol of the sky, while turquoise means the source of wealth and abundance. As to the font, it is most close to Savigny Bold Normal Italic.
For the multiple holders of UnionPay cards, its logo is associated with a quickly developing worldwide payment brand and world-class financial services. UnionPay declares among its goals not only to achieve commercial success but to create social value as well. It promises to give back to society and to become better together with the world.
The bold white lettering on the official UnionPay logo is set in the title case of a custom sans-serif typeface with some sharp and elegant cuts on the smooth heavy characters. One of the peculiarities of the inscription is the lowercase “I”, where the dot is placed low enough, making an interesting shape of the vertical bar.
As for the color palette of the UnionPay visual identity, it’s based on the red, green, and blue tricolor, with all three colors used in their dark and calm shades, and clean white for the lettering, which creates a bright contrast and adds a sense of transparency and trustworthiness to the composition.