UnionPay International has made more progress in expanding its mobile QuickPass worldwide, now offering the payment option in Hong Kong, through a collaboration with Bank of China.
Hong Kong is a huge market for the company, with 16 million cards currently issued — that means each resident has, on average, two UnionPay cards. The mobile payment platform, first launched in South Korea, allows cardholders to make fast and secure cross-border mobile payments at UnionPay QuickPass terminals with Apple Pay.
According to a press release, customers can complete transactions at supermarkets, on public transport and in restaurants — and can even use it to make their utilities payments, using their smartphones, wearable devices and UnionPay chip cards. This technology, which includes a security code and payment token, ensures transactions are made securely.
Outside mainland China, there are more than 400,000 POS terminals in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Canada, Australia and the UAE. And in mainland China, over 10 million terminals, in stores like KFC, McDonald’s, Watsons, Starbucks and FamilyMart, accept it. The payment option is also available in the apps of Ctrip, China Eastern Airlines, 360buy.com and dianping.com.
The company’s latest data shows that the transaction volume of mobile QuickPass in markets outside mainland China grew by about five times last year, with Australia being its largest overseas market.