[The People's Bank of China Approves Three Companies to Prepare for Bank Card Clearing Institutions] The People's Bank of China announced today that it has officially issued administrative licensing decisions to Visa Information Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd., LianTong (Hangzhou) Technology Services Co., Ltd., and Mastercard Network Information Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd., granting approval for these three enterprises to commence preparations for establishing bank card clearing institutions. It is reported that Visa Information Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. is a wholly foreign-owned enterprise established in China by the international card organization Visa; LianTong (Hangzhou) is a joint venture institution of American Express in China; Mastercard Network (Beijing) is a joint venture company of Mastercard in China.