Biggest international and domestic payment card schemes in China 2016-2022
the important role of mobile wallets in in-store payments, with a market share in 2021 that is higher than that of both credit and debit cards combined.
UnionPay overwhelmingly leads the market for card payments in China, while Visa had a somewhat higher market share than Mastercard. Such a dominance of an in-market local card scheme is not found in other countries in the world, where often either Visa or Mastercard tend to be the largest provider. Another important trait of Chinese payments is