About Our Customer

China Unionpay, founded in March 2002, is the dominant player in China's bankcard industry. The company is a shareholding financial institution engaged in establishing and running an inter-bank bankcard information switch and interchange network. This network enables the interoperability of a wide variety of bankcards in China with about 20 countries through its global network. The company also provides specialized services and is responsible for setting up operational regulations and technical standards for inter-bank CUP Card business as well.

Customer Situation

More than 800 million China Unionpay cards are accepted in Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Korea and Thailand. As the only national card brand in China, the world's fastest growing economy with a population of more than 1.3 billion, China Unionpay is anticipating exponential growth in demand for its card services both at home and abroad. In preparation for intense competition expected from well-known global credit card providers once China opens its bankcard sectors to foreign players in 2007, China Unionpay has embarked on aggressive expansion plans to develop a worldwide acceptance network by the end of 2006. The need for a reliable, secure and dynamic networking solution across a unified multi-country platform is of paramount importance. Our Solution

AT&T provides China Unionpay with a network-based VPN solution designed to offer secure, reliable transport of critical applications across a unified worldwide platform — the AT&T Global Network. This high-speed backbone is based on industry-leading switching products and Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS), offering globally consistent feature functionality.

The Results

During its challenging expansion China Unionpay chose AT&T as its premier networking partner to provide cardholders with safe and secure payment services when they are abroad. With experience in supporting global companies with complex networking requirements, AT&T delivers a top quality global network. AT&T Enhanced VPN Service is a globally consistent network-based IP VPN solution providing MPLS standards over the AT&T Global Network. AT&T designed the new network, evolved China Unionpay's existing network to an IP network by providing the project management of the deployment and proactively managed the lifecycle of China Unionpay's network.

AT&T delivers a suite of security services to help assess vulnerabilities, protect the infrastructure, detect attacks and respond to suspicious activities and events. Utilizing its depth of knowledge, experience, process, platforms and investments, AT&T assists China Unionpay in securing the global network with proactive 24x7 monitoring and management, real-time reporting and visibility of security performance and violations. Through AT&T's security support team, proven processes and leading-edge platforms are put in place to extend China Unionpay's security resources.

AT&T manages China Unionpay's private IP VPN network with round-the-clock monitoring and reporting on the status of the network and on the performance of the applications. This proactive end-to-end management with local language support is handled by AT&T's Global Client Support Center (GCSC) located in Singapore. One of the focused support services AT&T brings to the customer is AT&T eMaintenance, part of the AT&T BusinessDirect® platform. This application provides China Unionpay with improved proactive alarm management which allows 24x7 automated proactive alarm notification and network testing of the AT&T network services. AT&T's operational support enables China Unionpay to focus on its core business rather than network management.