Today's Big Stories for July 17, 2012

WTO ruling, IMF forecasting, and UN urging.

1. Visa Among U.S. Firms Seen Helped by WTO Ruling on China

WTO judges in Geneva yesterday agreed with the U.S. that China unfairly discriminates against foreign suppliers of electronic-payment services by imposing requirements on them that aren’t applied to domestic companies. They rejected the U.S. argument that China UnionPay Data Co., the world’s fastest- growing bank-card network, monopolizes the handling of domestic- currency payment-card transactions.

“It is definitely a mixed bag for both parties,” Scott Lincicome, an attorney at White & Case LLP, said in a phone interview. “The one thing we can safely say for sure is that both sides are going to appeal.”

2. It's not looking good for global growth, even in China, says IMF

The forecast for 2% growth in the U.S. this year and 2.3% next year were also scaled down from previous estimates. China’s economy is expected to swell a whopping 8% this year and 8.5% in 2013, but both of those forecasts are lower than previous ones. The same is true for for India’s forecasts of 6.1% expansion for 2012 and 6.5% for 2013, both slashed 0.7 percentage points.

3. UN head visits China seeking tough action on Syria

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon was headed to China on Tuesday amid alarm over the spiraling violence in Syria and a diplomatic push to get Russia and China to back a tougher response to attacks by President Bashar Assad's regime. Ban's trip comes ahead of a U.N. Security Council vote this week on whether to allow sanctions and military intervention in Syria if Assad's regime or insurgent forces fail to comply with a U.N. peace plan. Russia and China have blocked previous efforts to sanction Syria.

US wins trade dispute with China over credit cards

From USA Today (by way of my mother):

The United States had argued that China's government provides a domestic company, China Union Pay, with a monopoly over the processing of electronic payments. That discriminated against foreign companies and violated WTO rules.

The industry estimates that the ability to process China's electronic payment transactions could create 6,000 U.S. jobs.

I have two Union Pay cards: one from Bank of China and one from Huaxia Bank. Every standard bank card has Union Pay capability. It takes some paperwork to get a Visa card from either bank. I still don't have a Chinese Visa card, but am thinking about applying for one when I return to China. Union Pay is standard in China and very convenient domestically, but accessing your Chinese bank accounts from outside of China's borders is almost impossible without a Visa-capable bank card.