(Yicai) July 15 -- Chinese lenders are turning traditional bank cards into gateways for artificial intelligence services by bundling access to large language models, tokens, and AI productivity tools with their credit and debit card products.

In the past month, six commercial lenders, including Agricultural Bank of China and China Merchants Bank, have introduced AI-themed cards in partnership with major AI companies.

Bank cards are evolving beyond their traditional role as payment tools and becoming entryways to digital productivity resources, according to Xue Hongyan, a special researcher at Jiangsu Su Merchants Bank, a digital lender better known as SMB. By allowing customers to exchange spending points for AI model access, banks are positioning their cards as entry points into cutting-edge technologies, he said.

Bank of Communications teamed up with China UnionPay to issue an AI-themed debit card offering exclusive royalties for services from mainstream AI developers, it said on July 10. AgBank launched a credit card with Moonshot AI’s AI assistant Kimi on the same day to grant cardholders benefits, including agent quota, Kimi Code quotas, and agent cluster functionality.

Early this month, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, together with UnionPay and Alibaba Cloud Intelligent Group, released the SPD Credit Card, focusing on the vertical needs of AI developers and practitioners in the digital intelligence industry.

At the end of last month, Ping An Bank, UnionPay, and Tencent Cloud jointly debuted an AI debit card that allows holders to receive UnionPay Cloud’s TokenPlan basic computing power package and Tencent’s WorkBuddy rewards benefits.

MyBank, which boasts fintech giant Ant Group as its largest shareholder, announced on June 25 the release of China’s first AI equity card for micro and small businesses in collaboration with Alibaba Cloud, Zhima Credit, and Amap. The card offers services including token trial, content generation, customer acquisition tools, business opportunity assessment, and store location analysis.

On June 12, China Merchants Bank launched a credit card for AI and tech practitioners, becoming the first in the country to carry token rights. It provides a one-month MiniMax Token Plan Max, with services including monthly usage of 1.8 billion tokens.

Most of these lenders have chosen a cooperative architecture of ‘bank + clearing or platform + AI model vendor,’ using cards as carriers, handing over AI service supply to cloud vendors or AI platforms, and leaving clearing to China UnionPay.

Editor: Futura Costaglione