Huawei joins China’s UnionPay to launch mobile payment service Huawei Pay in Singapore
- Huawei Pay employs biometrics and near-field communication technology to enable in-store payments using Huawei phones
- Almost all of Singapore’s ATMs and more than 90 per cent of the country’s merchants already support UnionPay cards
China’s Huawei Technologies, the world’s No 2 smartphone vendor, has launched its Huawei Pay service in Singapore in collaboration with China’s UnionPay in the latest effort to expand the service globally.
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) Singapore was the first bank to support the service in the island nation, according to a post on Huawei’s website last Friday.
UnionPay, mainland China’s dominant bank card clearing service provider, said in a statement on Monday that Huawei Pay would work with a large number of merchants, including supermarket group NTUC FairPrice, stores under retail group Dairy Farm Group, as well as nearly 10,000 local taxis.
Almost all of Singapore’s ATMs and more than 90 per cent of the country’s merchants already support UnionPay cards, according to UnionPay.
Huawei will face stiff competition in Singapore’s fragmented mobile payments sector, with local platforms such as GrabPay, FavePay and PayNow competing with Chinese operators such as Alipay and WeChat Pay.