UnionPay is not holding back on international expansion.  In recent years, UnionPay has upped innovation significantly, developing lots of new products that can be used for crossborder transactions. These include a digital wallet, a crossborder B2B platform and even a crossborder marketing platform called UPlan.

What is QuickPass?

QuickPass is the latest way that UP have been bringing mobile payments to their customers around the world. It is a chip product which allows cardholders to add their CUP cards that have been issued by Standard Chartered Bank, Bank of East Asia and Bank of China to their mobile phones. Since it was rolled out throughout Northeast and Southeast Asia, UnionPay is no longer just for Chinese consumers. 

It was created with the intention of replacing cash, as it offers quick payments and is perfect for low value transactions. Offering a contactless payment solution, it facilitates debit/credit functions and e-cash. It is a popular payment method at many offline retailers, by accepted by the likes  KFC, McDonald's, Watsons, Starbucks, and FamilyMart. In mainland China, it is also accepted in the apps of many merchants such as Ctrip, dianping.com China Eastern Airlines,and 360buy.com.

How Quickly is QuickPass Growing?

• Crossborder transaction volume for QuickPass rose by around 100% in the first 6 months of 2017.
• Transaction volume of Quickpass used locally Macau & Hong Kong more than tripled YoY
• Transaction volume of Quickpass by Macau & Hong Kong cardholders in mainland China grew 7 fold YoY

Is QuickPass Secure?

QuickPass ensures security with multiple measures, including a payment token and dynamic security code. This means that the real card number is not divulged at the time of payment, making it a very safe way to pay.

What is QuickPass Used For?

QuickPass has become so popular as it supports various different ways to pay, including:

• In app online payments, available in China, Japan and Hong Kong
• In store payments, as QuickPass NFC is now accepted at around 500,000 POS terminals outside of mainland China in countries such as Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Canada, Australia and the UAE.
• QR code payments, which have been launched in China, Singapore and Hong Kong. This is soon set to launch in Indonesia, Australia & Thailand.

UnionPay is partnering with Mastercard & Visa in Thailand to create a standard QR code payment system that will be backed by the Bank of Thailand, and recommended to local retailers as well as financial institutions. (To find out more about the nature of payments & ecommerce in Thailand, click here.)

Where Is QuickPass Going Next?

Union Pay is very keen to push it’s QR code payments outside of mainland China, particularly into Southeast Asia. This is because UnionPay is already regularly accepted in the region. These countries are calling out for an upgrade to their payments infrastructure to bring them into the 21st century so there is lots of room for growth. 

UnionPay has also cooperated on payment standard in the region, as well as working on the development of payment infrastructure. This means that from a technical standpoint, Southeast Asia is ready for innovative new payment products like QuickPass.