China’s public transit riders can now use Apple Pay in 275 cities

Apple joins Huawei, Xiaomi and other domestic operators in offering contactless mobile payment in buses and subways nationwide

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Passengers inside a subway station during morning rush hour in Beijing on April 7. Apple Pay has been available on public transport in the capital and Shanghai since 2018. (Picture: Tingshu Wang/Reuters)

Published: 8:00am, 9 Apr 2020Updated: 8:00am, 9 Apr 2020

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Starting Wednesday, China’s commuters can wave their iPhones to pay for public transportation nationwide.

The change is a result of Apple partnering up with China T-Union, a contactless transit card currently supported in 275 Chinese cities. Card holders can ride subways or buses in any of those cities while enjoying local discounts. Apple Watch and iPhone users can set up their T-Union cards for Express Transit, allowing them to pay by scanning their device on the contactless reader without unlocking the phone or opening an app -- just like Apple's partnership with Suica in Japan.

Apple joins Huawei, Xiaomi and other domestic phone makers who already offer national public transit payment services via NFC. Apple Pay users in Hong Kong are out of luck, though. While the operator of the city’s ubiquitous Octopus e-payment system teased last year that it would launch on Apple Pay, the function has yet to arrive. Octopus told us last month that it will come “later in 2020.”

(Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba, whose affiliate Ant Financial runs Alipay.)

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