Q1: What are bankcard services tailoredfor rural migrant workers?

A:    Bankcardservices tailored for rural migrant workers enable rural migrant workers towithdraw their deposits in an outlet of rural credit cooperatives in theirhometown after they deposit their incomes into bankcards at commercial banksthat provide the special bankcard services in the cities where they work.

Bankcard servicestailored for rural migrant workers provide a convenient and quick withdrawalchannel that extends to the hometown of rural migrant workers since a card isnot only easy to carry but also can prevent cases such as fake notes, fraud andtheft and protect holders’ interests because if the bankcard is lost, theholder can report the loss promptly.

Q2: Why Guizhou province is chosen as the first province to conduct the pilot bankcardservices tailored for rural migrant workers? And how is the business going?

Guizhou is one of the largestexporters of rural migrant workers, whose 4 million and more rural migrantworkers earned over 30 billion yuan and accounted for 15.4 percent of the totalGDP of Guizhou province in 2005. Because rural migrant workers transferredtheir money back to their hometown by carrying cash, it was urgent to provide asecure and convenient remittance channel for the rural migrant workers. Inaddition, rural credit cooperatives in Guizhou province have established anetwork in the whole province and a unified general business operation systemin accordance with the Bankcard Network Unified Technical Standards(Version 2.0) and participated in the Unionpay network. They have met theoperational and technical requirements to conduct bankcard services tailoredfor rural migrant workers.

The pilot program waslaunched in Guizhou province on Dec. 29, 2005. After depositing theirmoney with the Unionpay debit card issued by the Industrial and Commercial bankof China or by the Guizhou branch of AgriculturalBank of China, bankcard holders canwithdraw money and inquire about their account information over the counter ofrural credit cooperatives at county level in Guizhou province through the network ofChina Unionpay. With supports of relevant ministries and Guizhou provincialgovernment and the concerted efforts of the Industrial and Commercial Bank ofChina, Agricultural Bank of China, China Unionpay and the Rural CreditCooperatives Association of Guizhou province，the pilot bankcard services in Guizhou provinceachieved great success. At present, the business volume increased steadily,with the average monthly growth reaching 54.2 percent. The system is runningsteadily with a successful transaction ratio of 98.76 percent forcross-regional withdrawal. The successful pilot program of bankcard servicestailored for rural migrant workers in Guizhou province helped rural migrant workers to remittheir earnings, improved the payment & settlement channel of rural credit cooperativesin the province and promoted the bankcard market development in rural areas.The pilot program won high praise from the participating banks and the publicand laid a foundation for the PBC to extend the business nationwide.

Q3: Why extend the bankcard servicestailored for rural migrant workers nationwide?

A: with the progress ofurbanization and the increase of rural labor mobility, cross-regional laborflow has become increasingly frequent. Currently, rural migrant workerpopulation in China amounted to more than100 million, and the average remittance volume reached hundreds of billion yuana year with an annual growth of ten billion yuan. However, many rural migrantworkers had to carry large amount of cash to their hometown due to the undevelopedrural remitting system. In order to provide a fast and convenient remittingchannel for rural migrant workers and prevent risks from cash carrying, the PBCdecided to launch the bankcard services tailored for rural migrant workers.

Providing bankcardservices tailored for rural migrant workers is one of the important measures toestablish a socialist new countryside and solve the problems in agriculturaleconomy. It was an important institutional arrangement in improving the ruralpayment and settlement environment and an effective way to facilitate moneytransfer by rural migrant workers and extend bankcard acceptance in countrysideand undeveloped regions and promote commercial banks and rural creditcooperatives to develop fee-based business as well.

Q4: What is the plan for 2006 in terms ofextending bankcard services tailored for rural migrant workers?

A: Based on theexperience from the pilot program in Guizhou province, the PBC decided toextend the bankcard services tailored for rural migrant workers nationwideafter investigation, research and collection of views of commercial banks,rural credit cooperatives and the China Unionpay. Two factors should be takeninto consideration when choosing provinces to implement the bankcard services tailoredfor rural migrant workers: First, it should be a big province in terms of ruralmigrant worker population; Second, rural credit cooperatives in the provinceshould have a relatively sound operational system. Accordingly, the PBC haschosen 11 provinces including Shandong province as the regions to implement the bankcard servicesfor rural migrant workers in 2006. At the same time, Guizhou province will improve the pilotprogram to cover more areas and include more commercial banks. The extensionprogram will be completed in two batches in 2006 according to the principle ofadopting a unified model and a gradual way. The extension work should befinished before end-September in 6 provinces including Shandong, Hunan, Jiangsu, Fujian and Jiangxi and Chongqing municipality and the whole of Guizhou province. Before end-2006, the extension program should be finished in 5 provinces including Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Henan and Guangxi. All memberbanks of the China Unionpay will become the participating bankcards issuers tojoin in the program while the state-owned commercial banks and nationaljoint-stock commercial banks should conduct the business in advance inparticular.

Q5: How do you guarantee the safety ofrural migrant workers’ funds in the process of extending the bankcard servicestailored for rural migrant workers?

A: The basic function ofbankcard services tailored for rural migrant workers is to meet their demandfor quick and safe withdrawal. Rural migrant workers have earned their salariesvery hard, so the PBC has stressed the safety issue in the business operationprocess and required all relevant parties to increase their risk preventionability through business management and technology advancement, and create asafe transaction environment for rural migrant workers when they withdraw theirmoney over the counter of rural credit cooperatives, guarantee fund safety andprotect the interests of rural migrant workers. First, business proceduresshould be regulated and relevant rules on account management, cash management,bankcard management and anti-money laundering management should be strictlyfollowed to prevent fraud and money laundering activities. Second, withdrawalvolume control should be strengthened, with a cash withdrawal ceiling of 5000yuan per card per day. Third, internal control should be strengthened,including bringing risk and crime prevention measures into the routinemanagement to protect rural migrant workers’ interests as cardholders. Fourth,technology measures should be improved to prevent risks, and guarantee systemand business continuity and the confidentiality, authenticity and integrity ofbankcard transaction information in transmission. Fifth, China Unionpay shouldguarantee the sound and safe function of the cross-bank transaction network toprevent cross-bank payment and settlement risks.   

Q6: What kind of bankcards can be used forthe bankcard services tailored for rural migrant workers?

A: In order to providemaximum convenience in withdrawal for rural migrant workers and in line withthe function design of bankcard services tailored for rural migrant workers,all RMB debit cards issued by member banks of China Unionpay with the Unionpaylogo can be used by rural migrant workers to withdraw cash over the counter ofrural credit cooperatives at or below the county level where the bankcardservices tailored for rural migrant workers are available.

In order to conduct thebankcard services tailored for rural migrant workers, relevant systems need tobe restructured. The PBC has required that the state-owned commercial banks andnational joint-stock commercial banks that have many outlets conduct bankcardservices tailored for rural migrant workers. All Unionpay bankcard issuersshould conduct such business by the end of 2006.

Q7: Are there any special operationalrequirements for money withdrawal through the bankcard services tailored forrural migrant workers? And how about relevant fee standards?

A: When bankcard holderswithdraw money over the counter of rural credit cooperatives at or below countylevel, procedures are the same as normal withdrawal through bankcards. Bankcardholders should enter their password and press the confirm button beforewithdrawal. Rural migrant workers should strengthen their risk preventionawareness, keep their bankcards and passwords at a safe place. In case ofbankcard loss, they should contact the bankcard issuers timely to reportlosses. Bankcard holders can obtain detailed bankcard information through 3different ways: issuer’s counter or their customer service hotline, the95516-service hotline of China Unionpay, and the service telephone number ofthe rural credit cooperatives or their counters.

Based on thecost-benefit analysis of bankcard services tailored for rural migrant workers,and in the principle of reducing rural migrant workers’ withdrawal cost andpromoting bankcard uses, while compensating all participating parties’ costsproperly so to mobilize them to conduct the business, relevant fees charged atrural migrant worker cardholders are set as follows with a reference to theremittance fee standards of commercial banks: charge of every withdrawal is 1percent of the transaction volume with the minimum fee of 1 yuan and themaximum fee of 50 yuan.