UnionPay seeks expansion with more comprehensive mobile payment app

Chinese financial services provider UnionPay officially released QuickPass, a unified online payment app on December 11, 2017, reports Chinanews.com.

The app covers 30 different commercial banks and payment institutions in China.

A picture taken on December 11, 2017 shows the icon of UnionPay's QuickPass app. [Photo: IC]

Through the new QuickPass app, users can link their bank cards, manage different bank accounts, as well as use the mobile payment services offered by each bank.

As mobile payment has penetrated into every aspect of the Chinese people's daily lives, QR codes used for making and receiving payments can now be seen almost everywhere.

A store's signboard shows a variety of mobile payment apps are accepted, including Alipay, WeChat Pay, Tencent's QQ Wallet, Apple Pay and UnionPay's QuickPass, in Guangzhou, south China's Gngdong Province on May 11, 2017. [File photo: IC]

Figures released by the People's Bank of China show 9.72 billion mobile payments were made with a transaction amount of 49.26 trillion yuan (around 7.44 trillion U.S. dollars) in the third quarter of 2017, registering year-on-year increases of 46.7 and 39.4 percent, respectively.

Alipay and Tecent Financial, the sector's two largest players, held over 90 percent of China's mobile payment market share in the second quarter this year, with respective market shares of 53.7 percent and 39.1 percent, according to a report issued by internet consultancy EnfoDesk.

China UnionPay's latest move is expected to initiate a new round of competition in the market.

The QuickPass app reportedly allows users to open an account with some banks without registering for a physical bank card. Transfers can then be made among different accounts via the app.

A staff member of China UnionPay demonstrates how to open a bank account via QuickPass at the app's launch ceremony in Beijing on December 11, 2017. [Photo: Chinanews.com]

Paying off credit card balances via QuickPass is also exempted from additional charges.

Payments via the QuickPass app are now accepted by 100,000 stores, over 30 colleges and more than 300 utilities companies nationwide.

China UnionPay said it will next focus on payment transactions on public transportation, in the healthcare sector, on vending machines and in smart parking lots.