Bank of East Asia to issue first debit card

The Bank of East Asia said on Wednesday that it will begin issuing debit cards in China on May 20th. The bank, Hong Kong's fifth largest lender by assets, is the first non-mainland bank to win approval for debit card services.

According to Reuters, several foreign banks, including HSBC Holdings, Citigroup Inc and Standard Chartered, have also applied tom provide debit card services in the country.

Only Bank of East Asia had a ready information technology infrastructure and payment solutions to win approval from Chinese authorities.

In a statement, the bank said that its data centre will be based in Shenzhen. Non-mainland banks are required to move or set up their IT support and data centres for card business in a mainland Chinese city.

They are not allowed to operate debit card businesses in China via offshore data centres partly because of concerns about financial security, Reuters said.