Visa wins approval from the People's Bank of China to prepare a domestic card clearing business

Visa has received approval from the People's Bank of China to begin formal preparations for a domestic bank card clearing institution. It has one year to complete the preparatory work before it can apply for a licence to start clearing domestic transactions.

The approval went to Visa Information Technology (Beijing), the company's foreign-invested entity in China. Visa first applied to the central bank in May 2020.

Mastercard's joint venture received the same preparatory approval in February 2020 and started processing payments in 2024. American Express was the first foreign network approved, in 2018. CEO Ryan McInerney said Visa has been active in China's payments market for more than 40 years.

The read: approval to prepare is not approval to process; UnionPay still runs the domestic rails.