UnionPay International (UPI) today announced the achievement of a significant progress through their co-operation with Pick n Pay and Absa Bank in the South African retail payments market. Through the Tripartite cooperation, Pick n Pay, a major food, clothing and general merchandise retailer, is enabled to accept UnionPay cards at all of its till points across its approximately 1,800 stores countrywide. “We are delighted to be able to offer our safe, simple and smooth payment service at the very important daily consumption merchant Pick n Pay, substantially enhancing our cardholders payment experience in South Africa,” says Luping Zhang, General Manager at UnionPay International Africa.

Retail Executive for Marketing at Pick n Pay, John Bradshaw, said that the company was looking forward to offering their customers even wider choice in how they pay for their groceries at Pick n Pay. “UnionPay is the largest card scheme in the world in terms of the number of cards issued. This gives our customers great choice, and we welcome the addition to our stores.”

Absa is excited to partner with UnionPay International and Pick n Pay, says Enoch Malisa, Head of Commercial Payments at Absa Retail and Business Bank SA. “We want to grow customer transactions across all segments by enabling the acceptance of all globally-issued cards.” “It is our strategic intent to enable our retailers to accept cards issued by global card schemes,” Malisa adds.

In order to meet the needs of UnionPay cardholders in South Africa, UnionPay is working with retailers of all sizes to enable their point of sale terminals at checkout counters across the country. Pick n Pay will benefit from having access to a growing market of UnionPay cardholders living in South Africa as well attracting spend from a very lucrative tourism segment, thereby attracting additional spend. 

UnionPay started its business in South Africa in 2008. So far, UnionPay cards are accepted at almost all local ATMs and POS terminals, offering payment ease to tourists as well as the increasing number of local cardholders. 

In partnership with more than 2,000 institutions worldwide, UnionPay has enabled card acceptance in 174 countries and regions, and realized card issuance in 55 countries and regions. UnionPay provides high quality, cost effective and secure cross-border payment services to the world’s largest cardholder base and ensures convenient local services to a growing number of global UnionPay cardholders and millions of merchants.