UnionPay streamlines cash access

China UnionPay, the statebacked electronic payments vendor, and US paymenttransfer company Money-Gram International Inc have agreed to expand their emergency-cash service for Union-Pay credit-card holders, the companies said.

The expansion will allow UnionPay credit-card holders to access up to $5,000 in emergency funds from "most countries within the MoneyGram network," the companies said in a release. MoneyGram, based in Dallas, Texas, offers around-theclock bill payment services in the United States and Canada and money transfer services worldwide through a global network of 321,000 agent locations, including retailers, post o% ces and financial institutions in 198 countries and territories.

When launched last summer, the emergency-cash service was available in 20 countries.

"This major increase in access points provides Union-Pay credit card holders with a greater level of global support, convenience and access to funds during an emergency," the companies said. The announcement also increases the number of banks supporting the service.

To coordinate picking up their money at a nearby MoneyGram location, UnionPay card holders have to call a local hotline. They needn't have access to their credit card, the companies said.

Grant Lines, MoneyGram's senior vice president for Asia Pacific, South Asia and the Middle East, called the ability to provide emergency cash to customers whose credit cards have been stolen or misplaced or aren't working a "critical value-added service".

In comments given to the New York-based World Journal, Lines linked the service expansion to the change in China's role to a spender of funds from a receiver of funds. China, the world's secondlargest foreign exchange market, after India, has long had a tradition of sending money earned overseas back home, he said. But in the last 12 to 18 months, Chinese have begun sending money to foreign countries, the executive said. "Although the amount (leaving China) is not very big, it is increasing," he said.

MoneyGram has been doing business in China since 2003. When the emergency-cash venture was launched last August in a signing ceremony at UnionPay's headquarters in Shanghai, a note from Zacks Equity Research said Money-Gram had been forming partnerships, renewing contracts and signing agreements to widen the scale of its money transfer services.

Union Pay says it has so far issued more than 3.1 billion payment cards.