UnionPay International

At a glance

What it is

International arm of the UnionPay card scheme; released the Agentic Payment Open Protocol (APOP) framework in April 2026 for agent identity, intent management and payment authorisation on UnionPay's acceptance network.

Type

Card network

Operator

China UnionPay

Homepage

unionpayintl.com

Last read

5 Nov 2026

What it does for this layer

• UnionPay released the Agentic Payment Open Protocol (APOP) framework, announced in Shanghai on 3 Apr 2026, as its solution for agent-based payments. kyodonewsprwire.jp, read 5 Nov 2026, dated 3 Apr 2026.
• UnionPay says the first APOP transaction was a taxi booking completed in Hong Kong on 2 Apr 2026, made through an AI assistant built by Evonet against the ride-hailing platform Hoppa. kyodonewsprwire.jp, read 5 Nov 2026, dated 2 Apr 2026.
• UnionPay says APOP supports the lifecycle management of agent identity, from registration and information updates to deregistration. kyodonewsprwire.jp, read 5 Nov 2026.
• UnionPay says APOP covers intent generation, registration and verification, and builds its trust mechanism around user intent. kyodonewsprwire.jp, read 5 Nov 2026.
• UnionPay says APOP offers user identity management with single sign-on across participating parties. kyodonewsprwire.jp, read 5 Nov 2026.
• UnionPay says APOP is built on UnionPay's global acceptance network and aims at interoperability across institutions, platforms and use cases in and outside mainland China. kyodonewsprwire.jp, read 5 Nov 2026.
• UnionPay lists compliance and controllability and security first among the APOP design principles, with agent identity verification and intent management meant to make agent payments traceable. kyodonewsprwire.jp, read 5 Nov 2026.
• Lianlian DigiTech and UnionPay International signed a strategic cooperation agreement in July 2026 to build AI-agent payment applications for cross-border commerce, starting with supplier matching and payment execution for enterprise purchasing. fintechnews.hk, read 5 Nov 2026, dated 29 Jul 2026. Secondary source

Partner lists that name it

Products and plans

Standards

Checks on this vendor's domains

How each check is read

What it does not do

• UnionPay International's APOP release links no public specification or developer documentation; the framework is described in the release only.
• UnionPay International states no support for TAP, Agent Pay, ACP or UCP; APOP is its own framework.

Related pages on this site

• Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), protocol profile
• All card networks in the vendors section
• All vendors