So VISA & MASTERCARD try to dump Russia, now UnionPay immediately rushes in to fill the void. Good job guys... How's that working out for ya now?
Russia's not that rich anyway so dumping Russia doesn't hurt them that much. VISA & Mastercard dumping China would really hurt. Hope they won't come to that. UnionPay's rushing into Russia is more like the fulfillment of China's promise to Russia to be its "support of no end" for its war efforts.
Nobody in China uses Visa or Mastercard. It's all UnionPay or electronic money transfers via mobile apps.
Visa and Mastercard has been in China since the 80's, but only in very limited capacity because China has been poor and nobody can afford using VISA and Mastercard and then once China become rich, UnionPay took over. Makes sense, UnionPay is the homegrown payment service provider with connections to all of the Chinese banks. Why would China let foreign payment service providers dominate? The same as us would never let UnionPay or Alipay dominate United States or the West. Alibaba sucks btw, full of fake and low-quality crap that only allows a 15-day return window when the suppliers often on purpose do not update the delivery status so won't get your product until way past the 15-day return window. DO NOT EVERY buy from Alibaba or AliExpress!! The low price is just not worth it when it breaks after just 5 days.
People have used them before but in very limited capacity because they couldn't afford them. Chinese banks just pushed everybody to use its homegrown payment system once China got richer.