China UnionPay and American Express have announced that they have “signed a memorandum of understanding that calls for both companies to explore the expansion of their current cooperative activities. For the past several years, China UnionPay and American Express have cooperated within China where American Express Cards run on the China UnionPay network. This new MOU will establish working teams to develop potential new areas of cooperation between the two companies within China and in markets outside of China.”

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GMAC, the Graduate Management Admission Council, has announced that people in China can now use Alipay, a major Chinese third-party online payment solution, to make purchases from the mba.com store, the official supplier of test-preparation material for the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT).

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Beijing-based mobile network operator, China mobile is reportedly interested in investing in Africa to boost services in rural areas. Though the company has not specified neither the region, nor its potential acquisition targets on the continent, it has an ambitious goal to “push business for mobile payments” as stated by Jianzhou Wang Chairman of company.

It would be recalled that recently, the operator concluded a deal that enabled it to acquire a 20% stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, a move expected to help boost its wireless payment and finance operations.

According to Dataxis Intelligence, China mobile is the world’s largest mobile operator with its 539 Million subscriber base of which 7.6 million using 3 G services at the end of March 2010.

China United Network Communications Co. Ltd. (China Unicom) has entered a strategic partnership with China’s sole payment service network, China Unionpay Co. Ltd. to develop mobile payment services, according to a Nov. 29 joint announcement.

Under the deal, China Unicom subscribers will be able to use China Unionpay to make payments and transfer money among participating banks. The two parties will cooperate on the exploration of value-added services such as e-commerce payment applications and security services.

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