Sun New Media has entered into an exclusive agreement with Shanghai Card Info Company, a subsidiary of China Union Pay, China's sole financial and transactional service provider with management control over China's unified inter-bank information exchange network.
Through the agreement, Sun New Media acquires ownership of Shanghai Card Info's proprietary payment processing technology, including the intellectual property rights to its secured payment processing chip and related source codes. The technology has already undergone a rigorous testing process by the Central Bank of China and has been approved for use. Sun New Media also gains access to Shanghai Card Info's bank card user database and the exclusive operating rights to its telephone-based payment systems in the commercial sector.
Sun New Media plans to use the acquired technology to develop NextPay, a payment system that will enable consumers to purchase goods via landline telephones, mobile phones or the internet, using their personal bank cards. NextPay will eventually serve as the payment mechanism for all of Sun New Media's transactional services, as well as other direct sales and home-shopping providers.
NextPay will also supplement Sun New Media's NextShow Guide, a digital e-product catalogue that displays and recommends products to consumers. Set to launch in March, 2007, the NextShow Guide will build a community of urban consumers and small businesses nationwide and will derive revenue from advertising and product sales. It could reach tens of millions of Chinese consumers monthly by drawing on the collective distribution networks of Shanghai Card Info and Sun Media Investment Group, Sun New Media's largest shareholder and one of China's largest private media companies.
