Ground-breaking payments to China – China UnionPay affiliate, LVG, becomes new Eurogiro member
Copenhagen / Manila 1 October 2014 - Eurogiro has signed a membership agreement with China UnionPay’s exclusive affiliate, Lucky Ventures Group (LVG), to provide one of the most innovative payment services to China today. This payment service to China is available to over 60 banks and postal members of the Eurogiro payments community and can be accessed via the SWIFT-Eurogiro Closed User Group.
Michel Stuijt, CEO of Eurogiro said: “We are very pleased to have signed with LVG and China UnionPay to offer this truly unique and innovative payment service to China. Enabling account transfers to all accounts in China is in high demand and Eurogiro members will be able to transfer credit payments using the Eurogiro network and messaging standards.”
Peter Lok, CEO of LVG Ltd, said: “We are pleased to be the newest member of the Eurogiro payments community. The key to the success of our payment service to China will be our membership in the Eurogiro payments community, as well as our exclusive arrangement with China Union Pay and its subsidiary, Guangzhou Unionpay Network Payment Company (GZ CUP). CUP is one of the largest payment gateways into China and has the ability to deposit payments into all bank accounts in China. Currently CUP has over 1.4 billion cardholders and issues over 5 billion cards”.
The service is unmatched in the industry and includes:
- Reach to any account in China
- No threshold ceiling, only a limitation of USD 200,000 per transaction - the standard for remittance payment providers of payments to China is a USD 50,000 limit per year in sending volume
- Real time RMB conversion of multiple currencies into RMB
- RMB funds sent directly to recipients
Further development of the payments program includes offering an enhanced e-commerce payments platform and the use of tax exempt Free Trade Zone facilities for merchants for their logistics and payment needs.
Gene Gutierrez, Regional Director, Asia Pacific for Eurogiro says “The Eurogiro payment service to China is designed to be simple and fast. Eurogiro members using the Eurogiro network can immediately use the service. They will send payments through the Eurogiro network to LVG. LVG, using the CUP intermediary bank in Hong Kong, will conduct the foreign currency conversion and deposit the funds into any account in China. The transfer is fast- almost real time once the payment instruction is received and the funding is in place in the settlement account”.
The foreign remit partner maintains a USD pre-funding account at the HKG settlement bank (which is a CUP Affiliate Financial Institution). The foreign remit partner also has a RMB pre-funding account. This RMB account will be topped up periodically from the USD pre-funding account and will be used to fund the remittance pay-out in RMB to the beneficiary account.
About Eurogiro
Eurogiro is a payments network that connects different organisations and payment “ecosystems” and facilitates business ventures amongst its members consisting of over 60 posts, banks and other financial institutions around the world. The Eurogiro payments community drives business development for the benefit of members that share a common goal of providing secure, transparent and cost-efficient payment solutions for their clients. Members connect to the highly flexible network and may tap other Eurogiro members that have a combined reach of more than 500,000 branches and 4 billion people in more than 50 countries. Eurogiro was founded in 1993 by 14 European postal organisations and is today a trusted partner on a global level.
About LVG Ltd.
LVG has its head office and principal business in Hong Kong. GZ CUP, a State-owned enterprise in China under the administration of the People’s Bank of China and Ministry of Finance of the Government of People’s Republic of China, has appointed LVG and endorsed it as the offshore RMB settlement partner for the overseas market. GZ CUP and LVG cooperate to conduct international cross-border payment business, including both inflow and outflow of RMB transfer and exchange services.
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Michel Stuijt, CEO Eurogiro, [email protected]
Gene Gutierrez, Regional Director, Asia Pacific Eurogiro, [email protected]
Peter Lok, CEO LVG, Ltd (exclusive affiliate of China Union Pay), [email protected]