China’s central bank has halted MasterCard (MA.NYSE) transactions in yuan, signaling an unwillingness to open the credit card industry to foreign companies, Financial Times reported. The People’s Bank of China said no payment institution was allowed to cooperate with foreign companies on cross-boarder yuan transaction, a ruling that has stopped the Chinese online payment platform EPayLinks from processing such transactions on cards the company jointly issued with MasterCard. The WTO last year said that China has allowed its homegrown UnionPay to monopolize yuan-denominated transaction by discriminating against foreign card companies. China is expected to have the world’s largest card market by 2020.
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