China UnionPay (CUP) issued 10.21 million credit cards in the first half of 2007 in China, up nearly 200 percent on last year.

A bunch of UnionPay cards. China UnionPay (CUP) issued 10.21 million credit cards in the first half of 2007 in China, up nearly 200 percent on last year.[newsphoto]

CUP, a national electronic payment and interchange network, also issued 127 million debit cards in the same period, up 113.7 percent year on year.

The boom is chiefly driven by the accelerating resident c

onsumption, said CUP president assistant Yan Qiang.

China's total sales of consumer goods read 4,204.4 billion yuan (US$556.54 billion) in the first half of 2007, up 15.4 percent on last year, according to official figures.

Marketing strategies, such as on-spot card processing in the street and gifts for card payment, also contributed to the issuance surge, Yan said.

Market share of the CUP cards has increased from less than percent by the end of last June to more than ten percent by the end of this June.

During the period, 95,700 stores were newly connected to the CUP network, up 38 percent on last year.

Along with the card-issuing explosion, 162,500 points of sales (POS) were newly connected, up 42 percent on last year, while 9,300 automatic teller machines (ATM) were newly connected, up 19 percent on last year.