China Telecom, the largest fixed telecom operator in the nation, together with China UnionPay (CUP) and Bank of China, launched a new mobile payment service in Ningbo. The so called E Surfing Great Wall Card, on basis of 13.56MHz Watchdata SIMpass technology, integrates the full functionality of a mobile phone SIM card and on site payment function of a standard bankcard. This is the first joint venture project after the unifying of mobile phone payment standards in China.
A Bank of China "Electronic Purse" account that meets the Banking IC card standard of People's Bank of China, often referred to as PBOC 2.0., is uploaded to the China Telecom UIM cards, enabling more enjoyable and convenient payment experience . Customers can also top-up their E-Surfing Great Wall E-Purse from their personal deposit account via SMS(Short text message).
"Currently, users that hold the card can consume by swinging mobile phones at more than 7,000 merchants and nearly 20,000 POS (Point of Sale) in Ningbo City and tap phones on more than 1,300 buses of 125 road lines." said Leibo Mao, Vice President of Marketing for China UnionPay Ningbo branch, "China UnionPay has nearly 300,000 POS nationwide that can support E-Surfing Great Wall Card. We looks to provide compatible terminals overseas, so people can use mobile payment service even in different countries in the near future."
Besides this project, the mobile phone proximity payment service based on the SIMpass technology has been laid out in 11 cities across the nation by China Telecom, who have accumulated 500k SIMpass users in Jiangsu province alone. Looking forward, the card will be issued in more provinces and municipalities, such as Guangdong and Hunan.
In order to provide high quality acceptance environment for mobile banking cards and other types of financial IC cards, China UnionPay united the member banks to promote innovative services by actively upgrading the infrastructure including POS devices nationwide.
Xu Luode, President of China UnionPay said, "We have been putting great importance to meet the diversified needs of our customers by promoting actively bank card service innovation. This time, China UnionPay shares its resources with Bank of China and China Telecom to launch the E-Surfing Great Wall card service. This is a meaningful exploration to accelerate the financial IC card applications and the development of mobile payment services. China UnionPay shall continue to pursue its joint development with win-win concept benefiting partners. This should help to build an open, standardized and flexible mobile payment platform to better facilitate the people´s lifestyle by providing a convenient, secure and efficient payment services."