On January 26, UnionPay International and Huawei inked a global cooperation agreement in Shenzhen to jointly launch Huawei Pay in markets outside the Chinese Mainland. This is the debut of Huawei Pay outside mainland China since it was jointly lauched in mainland China by UnionPay and Huawei in 2016. Huawei mobile phone users in markets along the Belt and Road like Russia will be able to enjoy this safe and convenient mobile payment service first. Larry Wang, Vice President of UnionPay International and Alex Zhang, President of the Software Product Line of Huawei, attended the signing ceremony.

Huawei has become the world’s third largest smartphone manufacturer, and has accumulated a substantial number of users in Russia, the Middle East and Europe. Meanwhile, the UnionPay global acceptance has expanded to 168 countries and regions, and UnionPay mobile payment is accepted at about one million POS terminals outside mainland China, which lays a solid foundation for the localized expansion of its mobile payment service.

In the near future, customers outside mainland China will be able to add their UnionPay cards to their Huawei Pay-enabled smartphones and then pay by tapping the phone at POS terminals that accepting UnionPay contactless payment. Customers can complete payment easily after choosing the card and verifying fingerprints. Huawei Pay safeguards users’ payment security and protect cardholders’ privacy and personal data via the technology of tokenization.

Larry Wang said, UnionPay International carries out extensive cooperation with various players in the payment industry to integrate the advantages of each party. This cooperation with Huawei is of great significance: Firstly, with this agreement, the two sides realize cooperation on a global scale, and issuers outside mainland China is able to launch the mobile payment service of Huawei Pay once connecting to UnionPay Mobile Service Platform, which greatly saves time and cost. Secondly, UnionPay innovative products become an important propeller to the business localization of the two parties, and it supports payment upgrade of more countries and regions. Thirdly, the cooperation between the two giants will enhance the global influence of China’s mobile payment application.

Alex Zhang said, opening and sharing is a crucial development orientation of digital economy and smart Internet. Huawei Terminal Cloud Service builds an ecosystem that oriented at user experience, and has built an open and global mobile intelligence ecosystem. Huawei is looking forward to enhancing cooperation with partners like UnionPay International, to offer safer and easier mobile payment service to every user of Huawei smart terminals around the world.

As the largest market along the Belt and Road, Russia is about to be the first market that reaps the fruit of the cooperation. To date, UnionPay’s acceptance penetration in Russia is over 85% with 400,000 POS terminals accepting UnionPay mobile contactless payment. More than 10 banks have issued about 1.3 million UnionPay cards locally. Next, UnionPay International and Huawei plan to launch Huawei Pay in more markets along the Belt and Road, especially in the Eastern Europe.

As China’s first mobile payment service based on security chip, Huawei Pay now supports the bankcards issued by 66 issuers and is available with 20 terminal devices including mobile phones and watches. Today, more and more users are paying with Huawei Pay. In 2017, the transaction volume via Huawei Pay exceeded 4 thousand million RMB, and this figure continues to grow.