UnionPay is accepted at major department stores, airlines, duty-free stores and fashion stores, hotels, restaurants, historical and cultural sites, and entertainment establishments, such as bookstores and gift stores of le Louvre museum, Versailles, Orsay, Picasso, and Strasbourg Citrus Orchard. UnionPay is also accepted at business schools and Universities in order to allow Asian students to pay large sums of money for their tuition fees. Merchants from certain sectors considered "High risk" or prohibited by the government cannot open a UnionPay account. How can merchants accept UnionPay in Europe? Accepting UnionPay in Europe requires a third-party banking service. UnionPay tries to significantly multiply its partnerships to expand UnionPay’s acceptance scope in Europe. A European merchant can open a UnionPay account and start accepting payments through payment gateways which is licensed in the country of the merchant. Licensed payment gateways in Eurozone countries are : Adyen BNP Paribas Silkpay Use outside of China : rest of the world Some UnionPay credit cards are also affiliated with American Express (AmEx), MasterCard, or Visa, and they can be used abroad as American Express, MasterCard, or Visa credit cards. UnionPay debit cards, however, can only be used in the UnionPay network and other networks that have signed contracts with UnionPay. Since 2006, China UnionPay cards can be used in over 100 countries outside China. In May 2005, Discover Network announced an alliance with China UnionPay Network. The two companies have signed a long-term agreement that allows acceptance of Discover Network brand cards at UnionPay ATMs and point-of-sale terminals in China and acceptance of China UnionPay cards on the PULSE network in the U.S. As of 1 November 2007, China UnionPay cards may be accepted where Discover Network Cards are accepted in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. As of early 2013, the cross acceptance agreement was expanded to support e-commerce or card-not-present transactions. In March 2010, PayPal announced a partnership with China UnionPay enabling the use of PayPal with UnionPay member cards. In 2015, China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) placed a ¥100,000 annual cap on overseas cash withdrawals from Chinese banks-issued UnionPay accounts. In November 2017, Azoya teamed up with UnionPay to enable consumers in China to profit from the Black Friday online shopping festival via a cross-border marketing platform. 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 6 March 2022, Sberbank, Alfa Bank and Tinkoff Bank reported several Russian banks