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Accepting international cards this summer could boost your ATM business

3.05.2019

tourism

One area of the UK economy which shows no sign of slowing down is tourism.

Experts at VisitBritain, the UK’s national tourism agency, say the sector is growing at an annual rate of 3.8 per cent will be worth £257bn by 2025.

Inbound tourism spend - that’s visitors from overseas - is increasing by around nine per cent a year.

All this makes the industry one of the country’s fastest growing sectors.

To put things into perspective, tourism accounts for nine per cent of GDP - it’s two and a half times the size of the automotive industry.

For many British businesses, these figures are clearly a big opportunity.

But how can independent ATM deployers, particularly those in areas of tourism, entice international visitors to use their services?

One very simple way is by talking tourists’ language when it comes to taking out cash.

While most of the top 20 nationalities coming to the UK will be using Mastercard or Visa, there is a significant and growing portion of visitors whose card of choice will be an international product, such as China’s UnionPay or Japan’s JCB.

If you’re an IAD, you may want to ask your payments partner whether they allow you to accept these.

If they don’t, it’s worth bearing in mind that in 2017, more than one million visitors from China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, spent a combined £1.4 billion in the British economy.

Many of these people will rely on UnionPay or JCB cards.

Thankfully, businesses don’t need to become members of UnionPay or JCB card schemes to facilitate withdrawals by tourists from East Asia and other parts of the world.

Forward-thinking BIN Sponsorship providers, like CashFlows, enable businesses to handle transactions with all the leading card schemes such as Mastercard, Visa, UnionPay, JCB and Discover.

BIN Sponsorship is a convenient, hassle-free way of joining the major payments networks without having to go through the time-consuming and costly process of becoming a member of a card scheme.

And with the annual tourist season about to begin, opting for BIN Sponsorship now could help your business say hello to more international visitors this summer.

To find out how you could benefit, talk to the CashFlows BIN Sponsorship team today on 01223 550920.

Sources:

https://www.visitbritain.org/sector-deal-uk-tourism

https://www.visitbritain.org/visitor-economy-facts

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19kIRoG3-DhJQbjVZJs2AGdju6dhnti7ReKhLt2K5sLs/edit#gid=636584724