Planet Payment and ACI Worldwide announced the launch of UnionPay International’s SecurePlus, the latest in UnionPay’s solution set, that will now enable the acceptance of UnionPay debit and credit cards online, with several significant enhancements.
UnionPay is one of the largest bankcard associations in the world, with over 6.5 billion cards issued worldwide. According to the Nilson Report, over 38 billion transactions were made on UnionPay cards in 2016, making it the third-most used card brand in the world.
With the launch of SecurePlus, several key features differentiate it from existing solutions. For example, SecurePlus allows for the acceptance of both credit and debit cards without a re-direct to a UnionPay Hosted Payment Page. UnionPay’s existing solution, SecurePay, allows for debit and credit card acceptance; however, the user is re-directed to a payment page hosted by UnionPay. This can cause significant friction due to internet issues, Chinese fire-wall, browser issues, timeouts, etc., resulting in decreased approval rates. Ecommerce merchants are also reticent to implement payment types that remove the customer from their checkout pipeline. Another existing UnionPay solution, ExpressPay, is in-line and does not require a redirect; however, it only allows for the acceptance of credit cards, a small percentage of the aggregate cards issued when including debit cards.
SecurePlus has the benefit of debit cards and credit cards, while still being in-line, removing friction and making it more palatable to merchants. SecurePlus also supports transaction tokenisation and recurring payments, and can offer 100% protection from fraud chargebacks, a significant concern for merchants selling cross-border. With ACI and Planet Payment’s SecurePlus offering, merchants will also be able to price and sell goods in multiple currencies, such as Chinese Renminbi, Hong Kong Dollars, US Dollars and Singapore Dollars.
“ACI Worldwide is excited to work with Planet Payment to be one of the first to bring UnionPay’s SecurePlus to market,” said Wolfgang Berner, VP Product Line Manager at ACI Worldwide. “This solution is a great benefit to our merchants—generating considerable interest in the travel and airline space—by helping them to more effectively access billions of UnionPay credit and debit cardholders with a seamless checkout process.”
“We are pleased to work with ACI and UnionPay International to be one of the first to launch SecurePlus,” said Paul Levine, Senior Vice President, Planet Payment. “This elegant solution will help merchants more effectively target the APAC market with its friendly consumer experience. Additionally, merchants can accept all cards, while still providing services like recurring payments, one-click payments and tokenisation services.”
