China Unionpay (CUP) and Malaysian Electronic Payment System (MEPS) launched ATM cash withdrawal services in Malaysia here on Thursday.

    Chinese visitors are able to withdraw their money from around 3,000 automated teller machines (ATM) of three participating banks, Hong Leong Bank, Maybank and Public Bank through their CUP cards.

    CUP, which was established in 2002, began its international global payment services in 2004. Currently, the CUP network has expanded to 26 countries and regions, including the United States, France, South Korea, Japan and Singapore.

    "At the end of year 2005, CUP cooperated with a leading Malaysian corporation to provide point-of-sales (POS) service in Malaysia," said CUP Chairman Liu Tinghuan.

    "With the launch of the CUP ATM services, we hope the CUP card will become a more common feature in Malaysia in the near future," he added.

    The MEPS is the only interbank network service provider in Malaysia, counting among its members from mostly local and foreign banks in the country.

    "We are expecting to extend this reach to all of our 15 member banks and over 6,000 ATMs by mid-2008," said Mohd Hata Robani, group managing director of the MEPS.

    Since 2005, the MEPS has introduced bilateral cross border ATM services with Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.

    In addition, the MEPS wants to introduce two new initiatives in the next 18 months, Mohd Hata said.

    "The first is to launch the ATM cash withdrawal service for Malaysia so they can access their funds in China," he explained.

    "The second initiative is to introduce the electronic point of sale service, or e-Debit, for CUP cardholders. As an extension to the ATM service, e-Debit offers cardholders the opportunity to pay for their purchases directly from their savings and /or current account at participating merchants in Malaysia," he said.

    The World Tourism Organization expects more than 100 million tourists to be traveling outside of China by the year 2020.

    Lim Siang Chai, deputy minister of tourism of Malaysia, said he hoped the launch could help Chinese tourists avoid problems of losing money or being robbed.

    He told Xinhua that the spending of Chinese tourists in Malaysia was 2,200 ringgit (651 U.S. dollars) per person per time on average.

    In 2006, a total of 439,294 Chinese tourists arrived in Malaysia.

    "This year up to August, tourists from China comprise 432,643, which is an increase of 77.1 percent from the corresponding period last year," he said.

    The Chinese tourists visiting Malaysia this year may exceed 700,000, said Cheng Yonghua, Chinese ambassador to Malaysia, adding that the Chinese students studying in Malaysia now amount to 12,000.

    "In recent years, our bilateral trade increased by 20 percent consecutively. The total volume last year was 37.1 billion U.S. dollars and may reach 40 billion U.S. dollars this year," he said.