China's banks have halted all orders for co-branded credit cards bearing the logos of foreign card issuers such as Visa and MasterCard, according to Goldpac Group, a Hong Kong-listed company that manufactures about 30 per cent of credit cards for the Chinese market. Customers looking to renew expired cards will now be issued two separate cards from the same bank, one serviced by China's state payment clearing monopoly Unionpay, the other by the foreign company. The move followed a notice from the People's Bank of China that told banks not to renew the cards, Goldpac confirmed to the Financial Times. Following on from the strategic update announced on 16 November 2016, ABN AMRO has decided to sell its private banking operations in Asia and the Middle East to LGT. In a brief email yesterday, Jeroen Rijpkema, chief executive officer of ABN AMRO Private Banking International said: "We have decided to focus on further strengthening and growing our private banking activities in Northwest Europe. The transfer of our private banking business in Asia and the Middle East is the logical next step in implementing this strategy."