China’s financial IC card market continues growing sharply

According to the specific targets for China’s EMV migration set by the PBOC, from January 1st 2015, all RMB settlement cards issued in economically advanced regions should be in the form of financial IC cards; most banks have sped up the issuance of financial IC cards since 2012.

By the end of 2012, the total circulation of IC cards exceed 100 million, growing by 320%, and right now 98% of total POS terminals and 96% of ATMs in the market have already been upgrade to support the financial IC cards. It is expected that the total number of financial IC cards in China will hit 200 million in 2013 and continuously surge to 600 million by the end of 2015.