CRI听力:Apple Pay Launched in China

Apple Pay is scheduled to come online at 5:00 am, Thursday, Feb.18,2016 [Photo: Xinhua]

Apple Pay has officially launched here in China.

Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the launch of the contactless payment system today through his Sina Weibo social media account.

The tech giant is teaming up with Chinese bankcard association UnionPay.

Nearly 20 Chinese banks have let their customers tie their bank accounts to Apple Pay, and UnionPay has provided compatible Point-Of-Sales terminals for users to complete the transactions.

Users of the iPhone 6, certain iPads, and Apple Watches equipped with near field communication, or NFC technology, will be able to use the system to buy items in certain stores in China.

McDonald's said today that it will accept Apple Pay in its 1,700 restaurants in China.

Apple also lists Lane Crawford, 7-Eleven, Burger King, and KFC among the merchants already accepting Apple Pay in China.

Chinese restaurant review and group buying services Meituan and Dazhongdianping and online retailer Dangdang.com have also made Apple Pay-compatible versions of their apps available to iPhone users.

China UnionPay has previously worked with the country's three telecom operators to promote NFC-based mobile payment services in competition with the payment solutions offered by Alibaba and Tencent.

Yet the project failed to gain a sizable share of the mobile payment market, in part because of different technical standards and a lack of adoption by merchants.

And for more on this, the Beijing Hour's Bob Jones earlier spoke with Cao Can, CRI's financial commentator.