China UnionPay Co has signed an agreement with a Taiwan partner to make UnionPay bank cards acceptable on the island to smooth payment from Chinese mainland visitors, the company said Thursday.

Shanghai-based UnionPay is the mainland's sole bank card transaction clearing house. It will hold a ceremony to officially start the cooperation with Taiwan's Credit Card Center, its counterpart on the island, next Monday in Taipei.

The ceremony will make the launch of the cooperation, said a senior UnionPay official who is not authorized to speak to the media.

"Actually we've already prepared the testing and UnionPay cards are now acceptable in Taiwan," the official said.

The move will smooth payments made by the Chinese mainland tourists in Taiwan. Before the agreement, the mainland tourists had to use cash only.

The Taiwan credit card center had 58,809 merchants on its list and had 79,824 point-of-sale terminals at the end of last year, according to its annual report.

Taiwan opened its tourism industry to mainland visitors in July 2008. It is likely about 1 million mainland tourists will visit Taiwan this year.

(Shanghai Daily August 7, 2009)