UnionPay: China’s Mobile Purchasing Specialists

Posted on January 31, 2008
Filed Under China Business, Mobile, RFID |

Chinese bank card network operator China UnionPay announced on January 29 that it added 4.95 million handset mobile payment users in 2007 to reach a total of 10 million users by the end of the year. Annual transaction volume for mobile payment, including SMS and SIM-card based POS (point-of-sale) transactions, reached RMB10.8 billion in 2007. UnionPay linked up secure payment systems with 10 national and 13 district banks last year. The company added 130,250 fixed-line payment terminals, for a total of 148,200 terminals, to record total fixed-line transactions worth RMB32.06 billion during the period.

In October UnionPay counted 8 million users and RMB8 billion’s worth of transactions. 10 million users is still less than 2% of China’s mobile phone users, so despite the spurt at the end of 2007 there’s still a long way to go.

The mobile payments are an extension of UnionPay’s core bankcard business. UnionPay was formed in 2002 as a clearinghouse for bankcard data and electronic payments. It’s something along the lines of a Mastercard or a Visa, but it also sets standards and arbitrates payment disputes within China.

UnionPay just teamed up with Nokia, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, Bank of Communications, Industrial Bank, and the Shenzhen Development Bank for a pilot near-field communications (NFC) mobile phone payment program using Nokia’s 6131i phone in Shanghai.