China's central bank said it has given American Express approval to set up a bank card clearance business in the country, in a statement released Saturday. This means retailers in China will soon be able to accept payments from American Express credit cards.

The company is the first foreign payment network to be allowed to process local currency transactions in China.

A network clearing license was granted to American Express's China joint venture, Express (Hangzhou) Technology Services Co., which won initial approval in 2018. The company is required to start the clearing service within six months.

Currently, China UnionPay is the only bank card clearance agency in China. Overseas card organizations can only do yuan transfers through dual-standard cards, like UnionPay plus American Express.

American Express said in a statement that Express (Hangzhou) Technology Services Co. will handle online and offline payment transactions of its cards in the Chinese mainland, and the company will also cooperate with mainstream domestic mobile wallet operators.

"This is another concrete reflection of China's further opening up and deepening of financial supply-side reforms, which is conducive to improving the level of China's payment and clearing services and the internationalization of Renminbi," the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said, adding that it will provide diversified and differentiated payment services to consumers in finance.

The central bank said it will continue to follow the principles of openness, fairness, and justice, to advance the bank card market access in an orderly manner, and continue to improve the entire process supervision system after access, while opening up and effectively maintaining financial stability.