The app of UnionPay ( zh, s=云闪付, p=Yúnshǎnfù, literally “Cloud QuickPass”) is a

mobile Mobile may refer to: Places * Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city * Mobile County, Alabama * Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S. * Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Mobile ( ...

and

online payment An e-commerce payment system (or an electronic payment system) facilitates the acceptance of electronic payment for offline transfer, also known as a subcomponent of electronic data interchange (EDI), e-commerce payment systems have become incre ...

service, developed and operated by

UnionPay UnionPay (), also known as China UnionPay () or by its abbreviation, CUP or UPI internationally, is a Chinese state-owned financial services corporation headquartered in Shanghai, China. It provides bank card services and a major card scheme ...

, the national Chinese bank card clearing service. Launched in 2017, it was designed to compete with the existing third-party Chinese mobile payment platforms, Alibaba Group's

Alipay Alipay () is a third-party mobile and online payment platform, established in Hangzhou, China in February 2004 by Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma. In 2015, Alipay moved its headquarters to Pudong, Shanghai, although its parent company An ...

and

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the w ...

WeChat Pay WeChat Pay () is a mobile payment and digital wallet service by WeChat based in China that allows users to make mobile payments and online transactions. As of March 2016, WeChat Pay had over 300 million users. WeChat Pay's main competitor in Ch ...

. The mobile app allows the user to add their UnionPay

bank card A bank card is typically a plastic card issued by a bank to its clients that performs one or more of a number of services that relate to giving the client access to bank account. Physically, a bank card will usually have the client's name, the ...

, and use it for various types of online and mobile payments, including in-app online payments,

QR code payment QR code payment is a contactless payment method where payment is performed by scanning a QR code from a mobile app. This is an alternative to doing electronic funds transfer at point of sale using a payment terminal. This avoids a lot of the infra ...

s, as well as

contactless payment Contactless payment systems are credit cards and debit cards, key fobs, smart cards, or other devices, including smartphones and other mobile devices, that use radio-frequency identification (RFID) or near-field communication (NFC, e.g. Samsun ...

s on

NFC NFC may refer to: Psychology * Need for cognition, in psychology * Need for closure, social psychological term Sports * NFC Championship Game, the National Football Conference Championship Game * NCAA Football Championship (Philippines) * Nati ...

-enabled devices using UnionPay's QuickPass feature.

History

The UnionPay app was launched on 11 December 2017, which was merged from the old UnionPay app and UnionPay Wallet ( zh, s=银联钱包). Following that, the app has trailed in popularity behind its two major competitors, however, in 2021, the mandate by the

Ministry of Industry and Information Technology The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the Chinese government, established in March 2008, is the state agency of the People's Republic of China responsible for regulation and development of the postal service, Internet, wireless ...

(MIIT) to open up the "

walled garden A walled garden is a garden enclosed by high walls, especially when this is done for horticultural rather than security purposes, although originally all gardens may have been enclosed for protection from animal or human intruders. In temperate c ...

" ecosystems of the major tech companies, has allowed for increasing interoperability of payment QR codes of Alipay and WeChat Pay in the process ongoing throughout 2021 and 2022.

Availability

The UnionPay app is available for the followings: * holders of the

cards issued in

Mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

and

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

; * holders of the

American Express American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation specialized in payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The company was found ...

renminbi The renminbi (; symbol: ¥; ISO code: CNY; abbreviation: RMB) is the official currency of the People's Republic of China and one of the world's most traded currencies, ranking as the fifth most traded currency in the world as of April 2022. ...

cards issued in Mainland China. As of 2021, it can be used internationally in contactless "tap-and-go" mode with supported point of sale terminals in 51 countries and regions, and in 33 countries and regions in when the

QR code A QR code (an initialism for quick response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) invented in 1994 by the Japanese company Denso Wave. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that can contain information about th ...

"scan-and-go" mode is used.

References

External links

* (in English) {{Mobile payments Mobile payments in China Mobile payments Online payments Payment service providers