China Unionpay (CUP), the country's only national electronic payment and interbank network operator, posted record card transactions of 12.31 billion yuan (US$1.54 billion) on New Year's Day, up 70 percent from the same 2005 period.

Statistics show that CUP cards were used in 20.75 million trans-bank transactions on Jan, 1, an increase of 13.4 percent, and the trade volume hit 12.09 billion yuan, up 70.7 percent.

Transactions in Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions and overseas markets saw a total daily transaction of 220 million yuan, up 53.4 percent over last New Year's Day.

(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)