Save a date for Cards Asia 2008, which will be scheduled on October 16 to 17, 2008 in Shanghai, China, following a market-leading summit Retail Banking Asia 2008. The conference is jointly convened by Global Leaders Institute and Shanghai Finance, which is directly dominated by People’s Bank of China, Shanghai headquarter.

Building on the success of our Payment China 2007 and 2008 summit which attracted over 350 experts and 20 sponsors worldwide, Cards Asia 2008 will be a specialist in cards for profit.

Hu Pingxi Vice Director, Shanghai Headquarter PEOPLE’S BANK OF CHINA	Xu Luode President CHINA UNIONPAY	Fang Xinghai Director SHANGHAI MUNICIPAL OFFICE OF FINANCE
Basker Rangachari Group Head of Strategic Alliances and Customer Loyalty STANDARD CHARTERED BANK	Cartier Lam Executive Vice President BANK OF EAST ASIA	Richard Williamson General Manager, Asia Strategy, International Financial Services COMMONWEALTH BANK
Nilo Reyes Senior Vice President, Technology and Operations DBS	Rajesh Yohannan Head of eBusiness and Direct Banking, Asia Pacific CITIBANK	Takayama Hiroshi Deputy President, China BANK OF TOKYO-MITSUBISHI UFJ Ltd
Carl Clump CEO RETAIL DECISIONS	Ian Kaw Channel Director STERLING COMMERCE, AN AT&T COMPANY	Zheng Xin Vice President, Shanghai Branch AGRICULTURAL BANK OF CHINA
Tan Weixian Vice President, Shanghai Bureau CHINA BANKING REGULATORY COMMISSION	Kaizar Patla Vice President, Head of Cards ABU DHABI COMMERCIAL BANK	Stephen Richards Evans Head of Private Bank, North East Asia STANDARD CHARTERED BANK
Ian Ewart Head of Marketing & Communications BARCLAYS WEALTH	Charles de Boissezon Chief Executive Officer BANQUE PIGUET & CIE SA	Bruno Lee Head of Wealth Management, Asia Pacific HSBC
Karen chan STANDARD CHARTERED BANK

The card business in Asia Pacific maintained its pep over the past two years. Cards is becoming fastest-growing sector in Asia’s retail banking business in Asia Region. Especially in China, by the end of September 2007, the number of cards has issued rose to 1.3 billion, a formidable achievement for a country that accelerated the development of bank card in 2003.

By 2013, cards will become the second largest retail banking service, next only to that for home buying, with an annual profit of 1.6 billion US dollars, or 22 percent of combined profits for all retail banking services.

Players have struggled to keep pace with the growth in the market, particularly when it comes to strengthening their back office systems, staff and technology & innovation. The market is booming but competition is fierce.

Cards Asia 2008 arms you with the main business and technology trends in the Asia’s retail banking market. It discusses the current structure of the markets and analyses the main areas of technology investment, including market approach, risk management, intermediary business and technology standardization initiatives, NFC and pre-paid card technology etc.