NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is the latest OEM to announce plans to join the “Pays” club, working with payments network China UnionPay to launch an NFC-enabled mobile payments service in China, although giving no details on a launch date or participating banks.
UnionPay, which is also working with Apple, Samsung and Huawei on their respective payments services in China, along with Chinese banks on their host card emulation-enabled payments services, confirmed it is working with Xiaomi toward the launch of the OEM’s forthcoming Mi Pay service.
UnionPay has been enabling mobile payments with Chinese banking cards through a variety of “partnerships,” seeking to send more transactions through its network and to fend off challenges from large Internet players Alipay and Tencent Holdings, which are expanding their e-commerce payments services to mobile payments in stores.