Xiaomi is doing just about what every other major technology company is doing, so if they’re launching mobile payment services, don’t expect the Chinese company to stay behind. It announced the Mi Pay service earlier this month and today Xiaomi has confirmed that its mobile payments service has gone live in China. Since the People’s Republic is Xiaomi’s biggest market it goes without saying that Mi Pay will be limited to China for the time being.
Xiaomi Mi Pay supports debit and credit cards from 20 banks at launch. It also supports public transportation cars from six cities in China. Xiaomi has thus become the first mobile company to provide support for contactless payments via both bank cards and public transportation cards.
Support for 20 band cards at launch has been made possible due to a partnership with China UnionPay. It happens to be China’s only bank card association that operates an interbank transaction settlement system. China UnionPay is one of the world’s largest payment network now, only behind the likes of Visa and Mastercard.
The Mi Pay service is currently supported by the Xiaomi Mi 5 handset which features a built-in NFC chip and a separate secure element chip which has passed the “EAL 6+” test. Xiaomi is certainly going to expand its handset lineup in the coming days to add more devices that work with the Mi Pay service.
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