Xiaomi and UnionPay launching mobile payment service in China

Xiaomi has formally announced that they are partnering with the national bank card association China UnionPay to put together a mobile payment service for use on the company’s smartphones. While they haven’t announced a timetable for the arrival of this service, they’re unfortunately already a little bit behind on the game.

The system will be called QuickPass, and it will let users make payments at practically any point-of-sale terminal where they would use a credit or debit card simply by holding their mobile device near the NFC reading area. China is a simply massive mobile market, so it makes sense that everyone is trying to build their China-focused smartphone services. That’s why it’s no surprise that Samsung and Apple are already in the business of mobile payments in the region with Apple Pay launching in February and Samsung Pay arriving in March. Will Xiaomi’s QuickPass be able to go toe to toe with these tech titans?

Time will tell. We’ve heard rumors of Xiaomi developing a mobile payment system for quite some time, but with this announcement it is now official that there will be at least three main players on the battleground of China’s mobile payment market. While we wait to see how this shakes out, let us know your thoughts regarding QuickPass and mobile payment functionality in general, and stick around Android Authority for all the latest news happening in the mobile world.