China's UnionPay prepares for significant move into into Kazakhstan and Central Asia

UnionPay, China's dominant payment service giant, has tried to provide more clarity than its sometimes inscrutable state-owned counterparts, with company president Shi Wenchao shedding light on Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative.

“We can’t survive unless we win trust from people there,” Shi told a forum in Shanghai earlier this week. “It is the people there who can protect our interests.”

Since Beijing unveiled its ambitions of creating the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road last year, all eyes have been on China and how it will splash out billions of dollars on infrastructure to connect some 60 countries along the routes with the world’s most populated market.

“It’s a wrong perception that we carry a huge bag of cash to invest in those countries on our own,” Shi said. “Money alone won’t necessarily work under the ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative.”

Shi’s remarks were apparently aimed at soothing concerns about the effectiveness of China’s massive investments in the underdeveloped economies of Central Asia.

In the still widely untapped market, UnionPay needs to install thousands of point-of-sales machines as well as settlement and clearing networks before it can offer payment services.

UnionPay, already facing challenges from online payment services such as AliPay and TenPay locally, will soon have to take on global giants such as Visa and MasterCard on its home soil when Beijing gives the green light to international companies to conduct yuan-denominated credit-card-clearing business in China.