Most of us have heard of Apple and their ‘wallet replacing’ app Apple Pay. What many may not know, is that as of December 18 2015, Apple has announced their partnership with China UnionPay to bring Apple Pay to China early next year. This leads to the questions, who exactly is China UnionPay, and what does that mean for you?
The fact that such a well known and trusted brand has decided to work with China UnionPay on such a key piece of technology, speaks volumes. In the official Apple press release they stated:
“China UnionPay is dedicated to promoting payment innovations and providing secure, convenient mobile payment experiences for its hundreds of millions of cardholders, aligning multiple parties in the industry,” said Chai Hongfeng, executive vice president of China UnionPay.
“We’re very excited to offer Apple Pay among a diverse set of innovative payment options that work with China UnionPay QuickPass”.
As a bankcard network, China UnionPay operates China’s national inter-bank clearing and settlement system, develops the worldwide UnionPay Card acceptance network, promotes the issuance and usage of the UnionPay cards as well as other innovative payment solutions, so as to provide quality, efficient and safe payment services to cardholders. To date, the total number of the UnionPay Card issued both at home and abroad has been over 5 billion.
The UnionPay network has been extended to all the cities and rural areas in China. In addition, UnionPay has enabled UnionPay Card acceptance across more than 150 countries and regions through extensive cooperation with financial and payment institutions around the world. UnionPay cards can be used in more than 26 million merchants and 1.9 million ATM.”
So what exactly does this partnership mean for you? The potential may be that the no-name card from China Union Pay could be added to your Wallet on iOS devices and used to pay for items. If Apple can trust them, can we?
Apple, China UnionPay teaming on Apple Pay China rollout for early 2016
- Clearing a major hurdle, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and China UnionPay are teaming up to bring Apple Pay to China “as soon as early 2016,” the companies announced.
- China UnionPay holds a monopoly on credit and debit processing in the country, previously considered a major headwind to Apple’s plans for the country (which also features private payments by Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat).
- In the plan, the company’s cardholders will be able to add bank cards to Apple Pay on iOS devices. The solution will utilize China UnionPay’s QuickPass ars part of the security for the system.
- Apple says the rollout can happen after “relevant tests and certification required by Chinese regulators.”
All thanks and credit for the above article goes out to Jason Aycock over at Seeking Alpha.