China's biggest commercial bank Tuesday launched a special peony petro card which will be accepted at the country's over 8,000 gas stations for payment service.

 

Also starting on Tuesday, all kinds of bank cards including the new peony petro card will be available for payment service at the 8,000 gas stations.

 

The peony petro card is the first link card issued in China by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Corporation (ICBC) and the PetroChina Company Limited, China's leading oil retailer.

 

The ICBC said the new peony petro card will be divided into two kinds, a peony international card and a peony money link card, which can be used at China's 18,000 ATM and all POS terminals.

 

PetroChina now owns more than 17,000 gas stations across the country. The company started cooperation with the ICBC last year to install POS terminals at its gas stations.

 

As China's largest commercial bank, the ICBC enjoys total assets of 6.4 trillion yuan, with nearly 20,000 outlets at home and abroad as well as over 100 million individual clients. By the end of last year, the ICBC had launched more than 130 million peony cards.

 

(Xinhua News Agency February 15, 2006)