Eighteen Chinese banks, card association China UnionPay, China Telecom, China Unicom and a range of handset manufacturers and industry suppliers have formed an alliance in a bid to create standards and a business model for the introduction of a single, open platform that can be used by businesses throughout China to offer NFC and mobile payments services. More
China Mobile is considering adding support for NFC, as well as for its own RF SIM technology, to its mobile payments service, the company has told reporters... More
The bank card association is conducting NFC pilots in Shanghai, Ningbo and Changsha and has extended its mobile payments services to a total of six provinces and regions. More
China Mobile has agreed to pay $5.8 billion for a 20% stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPD Bank), making the mobile network operator the second largest shareholder in the bank... More
Bloomberg reports that China Mobile may be about to buy a 20% stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank at a cost of 40bn yuan (about $5.9bn)... More
OPINION: A host of new NFC products and initiatives were announced at this year’s Mobile World Congress but, it seems, we will have to wait until the end of this year before the first NFC handsets become widely available in the West. More
The mobile operator has signed up five Chinese banks and five transport operators for the commercial launch of its NFC service, scheduled to take place during the second quarter of 2010. More
VeriFone Holdings has announced that it is co-lead investor in a reverse merger financing for Trunkbow International Holdings Ltd, a Chinese mobile payments and value-added service applications company specialising in 2.4GHz (RF SIM) NFC solutions... More
OPINION: One of the key forecasts in our new report ‘NFC: The Road to Commercial Deployment’ is that successful NFC services will require one company to firmly take the lead, and that this will inevitably see banks and mobile network operators going head-to-head in a battle to win control of consumers’ mobile wallets. More
The country’s third largest mobile network operator is testing non-NFC standard RF SIM technology in Shanghai, where China Unicom is already running an NFC trial. More
A deal between Chinese bank card association China UnionPay (CUP) and mobile operator China Unicom is set to see the introduction of a series of co-branded mobile payments services... More
OPINION: It looks as though Shanghai is now set to be the venue for a new series of mobile contactless payment initiatives from China’s mobile operators, banks and public transport providers. More
China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator with 470 million subscribers, and China Unionpay, the national bank card association, were amongst the first in the world to field test NFC back in 2006. Now, both companies are taking a second look at mobile contactless payments and mobile operator China Unicom is getting in on the action too… More
China Unicom and Yucheng Transportation Card Co have jointly introduced an NFC version of Chongqing city’s Yucheng Tong card that can be used to make payments on public transport, in cinemas and at shops and restaurants. More