BEIJING, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Chinese card payment giant China UnionPay had extended its services to 176 countries and regions.

Merchants in countries including Bosnia and Herzegovina and Chile began to accept UnionPay cards for the first time, the company said in a statement.

The Shanghai-based financial service provider, now accepted by over 28 million merchants around the globe, has so far issued over 120 million cards in 57 foreign countries and regions, including Bahrain and Madagascar.

UnionPay is increasingly becoming a preferred payment tool for global cardholders, the company said, reporting a transaction volume increase of nearly 40 percent in the first half of 2019.

"The rapid growth in card issuance and the popularity of UnionPay as a payment method is largely due to China's further opening up and the increasing demand for cross-border transactions," said the statement.

The company is also working on technologies and innovations to further go digital. Its mobile application, Unionpay app, now has over 200 million registered users and can be accessed in more than 3 million merchants overseas.