UnionPay and TripLink Unveil Virtual Card for B2B Cross-Border Payments

Global payment network UnionPay has partnered with FinTech company TripLink to introduce the UnionPay Virtual Commercial Card in Singapore.

This collaboration aims to address the cross-border payment needs of businesses, particularly in the airlines and hotel industries, the companies said in a Tuesday (Oct. 10) press release. The UnionPay Virtual Commercial Card offers a convenient, cost-effective and secure payment solution for conducting real-time cross-border transactions.

These new product aims to meet the demands of the growing number of online transactions in the global travel and tourism sector, where two-thirds of the industry’s revenue came from online sales channels in 2022, according to the release. The online travel market size worldwide was $475 billion in 2022 and is projected to more than double to over $1 trillion by 2030. 

This collaboration between UnionPay and TripLink not only meets the evolving needs of businesses but also expands the issuance coverage of UnionPay in Singapore, empowering more companies to engage in global eCommerce, the release said.

Carine Low, Singapore country general manager of UnionPay International, said in the release: “We are pleased to be able to offer this customized solution for TripLink and its customers, which will propel us forward in addressing some of the pain points encountered by businesses in B2B payment.”

Wang Zhe, CEO of TripLink International, added: “Our aim to help enterprises develop worldwide to accelerate business growth will be well served by connecting more businesses through the UnionPay network, thus facilitating an increase in global payments — especially inbound payments to Mainland China.”

It was reported in December, as UnionPay was marking its tenth year in operation, that the Shanghai-based card acceptance company had issued more than 200 million cards outside the Chinese mainland. UnionPay said at the time that 38 million merchants outside of the Chinese mainland accept UnionPay cards, while 22 million online merchants use the company for their payment needs. 

The company’s partnership with TripLink comes at a time when most large companies in the travel and tourism sectors are unhappy with their own approaches to payments management.

PYMNTS Intelligence has found that the majority of financial leaders in these sectors rate their firms’ payments operations as only “somewhat” effective, and one in 10 say their systems are ineffective, according to the “Smart Receivables Playbook: Rethinking Payments Processing After the Pandemic,” a PYMNTS and Flywire collaboration. 

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