Xiaomi enters the crowded payments space in India with the launch of Mi Pay

In a press event in New Delhi, Xiaomi announced its new payments service in India, Mi Pay. Mi Pay is a mobile payments service based on the country’s UPI platform.

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a real-time mobile payment system facilitating inter-bank transactions developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Founded in 2008, the NPCI is a not-for-profit owned by a consortium of major banks and an umbrella organization for operating retail payments and settlement systems in the country. While NPCI is a private entity, it is regulated by the country’s central bank – Reserve Bank of India.

The Mi Pay app allows you to make payments across over 120 banks through multiple options such as UPI, debit and credit cards, and netbanking. It lets you recharge your mobile plans and pay your bills from over 120 billers.

Mi Pay was originally launched in China in 2016 and similar to other mobile payment systems globally like Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay, offers contactless payments via assigned credit and debit cards. However, in India, like Google did with Google Pay, Xiaomi has opted to go for the UPI platform. The company had unveiled the service in India in beta in December 2018.

Xiaomi will hope that more and more Xiaomi users will adopt Mi Pay and the company has deeply integrated the service within the MIUI across SMS, Contacts, Scanner, App Vault, and Settings for a seamless experience of transferring funds directly from anywhere.

At the launch, Xiaomi asserted its focus on user data security and assured that all Mi Pay data is stored only in India. As is required for all UPI-based payments apps, Mi Pay is approved by the NPCI, and the payments service is powered by ICICI Bank, one of India’s leading private sector bank.

What do you think of the new Mi Pay app? Which UPI app do you use, and would you want to switch now? Tell us in the comments!