Originally Posted by
karlcheong
Well the applabel is just a name given by the bank, it has no meaning in the transaction. Common CUP applabels I had seen included "UICC CREDIT" "UNIONPAY CREDIT", "UICS CREDIT"
AFAIK, card terminals in HK/Macau/Taiwan usually have two mode, one for VISA/MASTER/AMEX/JCB cards, another for CUP. Cashiers switch between mode when it is needed.
Merchants who have different terminals usually because of management requirement/ processing rate/ bonus points redemption/ bank promotion, but not merely because of card brands.
It seems that in China, the merchants that actually accept Visa and the like, all use a separate terminal to run the card, rather than using the primary terminal that is for UnionPay only. As a matter of fact, out of the ones that accept foreign cards, a few actually swiped my chipped Visa card, even though I see that the terminal has a chip slot! When I asked one of the stores about it, they merely replied that the chip slot is disabled, which was a surprise.