UnionPay — a Chinese payment system, interest in whose cards in Russia has grown sharply after the introduction of international sanctions and the refusal of Visa and Mastercard to work with Russian banks. We live in Mexico permanently, therefore we do not use UnionPay cards ourselves. We have prepared this material using materials from open sources and based on the opinions of our clients. According to Wikipedia, in Russia, UnionPay cards, called “co-badged” cards, since they also work with the Russian payment system “Mir”, are issued by the following banks:
- Rosselkhozbank
- Gazprombank
- Oriental
- Solidarity
- Bank Saint Petersburg
- Promsvyazbank
- All-Russian Regional Development Bank
- Primsotsbank
- Primorye
- Zenith
- Post Bank
At the same time, Russian sanctioned banks do not have the right to issue UnionPay cards. Such banks include Sberbank, Alfa Bank, Otkritie, Sovcombank, VTB. Let's say right away that in Mexico the functionality of UnionPay cards is very limited and in most cases comes down to the prospect of withdrawing cash through ATMs of local banks. Information from the official website of the payment system about the availability of payments in Mexico using UnionPay cards is not true. In Russia, banks issue, in most cases, UnionPay debit cards, which further aggravates the situation.Cash withdrawal.In Mexico, you can withdraw cash from UnionPay at ATMs of Bancomer, Banamex, Scotiabank, CiBanco, Intercam, BanCoppel and others. The ATM fee depends on the bank that owns it and does not depend on the card issuing bank. The cash withdrawal limit also depends on the Mexican bank and, in most cases, is 7,000 pesos per day (CiBanco has 25,000 pesos per day). When withdrawing cash in Mexican pesos, a double (account in dollars) or even triple conversion (account in rubles) occurs at the rates of the payment system and the issuing bank. For this reason, the exchange rate difference can be unexpectedly higher than when withdrawing cash from other cards. You can find out the actual conversion rate later by looking at your bank statement.Payment at physical retail outlets.Most often, payment is impossible. On its website, UnionPay reports the option of paying by card at the Intercontinental, Fiesta Americana and Four Season hotels, at the Palacio de Hierro and Liverpool shopping centers, and in addition at duty free at airports. None of our clients' attempts to pay with a UnionPay card in Mexico have been successful. Most payment terminals in Mexico only accept Visa and Mastercard and not always — American Express. Hotels will most likely, in theory, only accept UnionPay credit cards, but will not accept debit cards. UnionPay recommends using monobrand rather than co-branded UnionPay cards for physical payments.Payment online.If we are talking about online purchases of goods and services related to Mexico (Mercado Libre, Mexican airlines, online stores), as in the previous case, payment using UnionPay cards is not possible. In most cases, acquiring in Mexico is only possible for Visa and Mastercard cards.Contactless payment.In addition, we do not know of a single case of contactless payment accompanied by UnionPay cards. The payment system does not work with Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay. Therefore, contactless payment is most likely completely impossible.UnionPay virtual card.It's useless in Mexico.