UnionPay, along with 15 global ecosystem partners, showcased innovations at the 2026 China International Financial Exhibition in Shanghai, highlighting progress in global network development, core technologies, open AI ecosystem, consumption growth solutions, and ecosystem collaboration.

The company is investing in fintech infrastructure, artificial intelligence, privacy protection, and smart payments, promoting collaborative innovation among ecosystem members, universities, tech firms, and government agencies to expand its reach.

At the expo, UnionPay underscored its push to expand the global network, build self-reliant digital infrastructure, and deliver value to consumers, businesses, and the real economy in 2026 and beyond.

Nihao China, a one-stop service app for inbound visitors developed with China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, was showcased with features like QR payments, public transit, voice translation, and tax refunds, boasting over 200,000 registered users and full localization.

The Nihao China app is designed to assist inbound travelers, offering QR payment, public transit access, translation, and tax refunds, with more than 200,000 registered users and a fully localized interface for international users.

Live dashboards at the Shanghai booth revealed data insights such as foot traffic heat maps and profiles of domestic and international visitors, showing inbound tourists account for 55% of spending in Nanjing East Road, with spending patterns varying by nationality.

UnionPay is highlighting a National AI Application Pilot Base in finance that uses a 1+1+N large language model architecture (L0 foundation, L1 financial payments model, and L2 use-case models), supported by 1,000+ GPUs and a 2TB open financial dataset, with over 120 AI applications across inclusive finance, consumption growth, risk management/compliance, and operational efficiency.

Cross-border QR payment interoperability has accelerated partnerships across regions, and the China-Indonesia cross-border QR linkage went live on June 11, 2026, expanding UnionPay QR acceptance to over 46 million overseas merchants.

UnionPay maintains a global payment network spanning 183 countries and regions with more than 100 million merchants outside China, and strong growth in international card and wallet volumes as of May 2026.

UnionPay’s open AI platform aggregates ecosystem partners to provide payment, data, and AI services, featuring the APOP (Agentic Payment Open Protocol) that enables agent-based payments with user consent and risk controls, with 19 industry partners deploying applications like travel assistants and overseas hotel bookings.