UnionPay HCE mobile QuickPass debuts overseas in South Korea

Ge Huayong (middle), Chairman of China UnionPay, Hwang Chang-Gyu (left), CEO of KT Corporation, and Suh Joon-Hee (right), CEO of BCcard attended the launching ceremony.

On June 27, UnionPay International and KT Corportion together with its subsidiary BCcard jointly announced to launch UnionPay HCE mobile QuickPass in South Korea, which will enable the local UnionPay cardholders to pay by tapping their mobile phones. South Korea becomes the first overseas market to have launched mobile QuickPass. Ge Huayong, Chairman of China UnionPay, Hwang Chang-Gyu, CEO of KT Corporation, and Suh Joon-Hee, CEO of BCcard attended the launching ceremony.

Mobile QuickPass is UnionPay’s new mobile payment solution. It supports both offline contactless payment via mobile phones and other mobile devices as well as remote online payment. It encompasses a variety of mobile payment products, including HCE, Apple Pay and Sumsang Pay. Mobile QuickPass is safer than other mobile payment products available in the market. Adopting advanced technology, it provides multiple security assurance including dynamic password and payment token. The real bankcard number is not shown during the payment, and the transaction information is well-kept within the issuer and UnionPay’s network, which effectively ensures transaction security.

Two factors facilitates mobile QuickPass’s overseas debut in South Korea: First, UnionPay’s card-issuing scale in the market keeps growing. To date, over 19 million UnionPay cards have been issued there. Second, the personnel exchanges between China and South Korea keep increasingly. Over the first 5 months of this year, the transaction volume of Korea-issued UnionPay cards in the Chinese Mainland grew 45% year-on-year, and the UnionPay card have become an important payment method for Korean residents who visit China. More flexible and diversified payment services for Korean UnionPay cardholders will attract more Korean people to China.

Among UnionPay’s cooperative issuers in South Korea, BCcard and its 19 member issuers have issued over 70% of all the UnionPay cards in the market. Based on their former successful cooperation, UnionPay International joins hands with BCcard in launching mobile QuickPass. Korean cardholders can bind their UnionPay cards issued by BCcard or its member issuers with their NFC-enabled mobile phones (with operating system above Android 4.4.2) via BCcard official website or app, and will get their virtual cards, ie. mobile QuickPass cards. Then, cardholders can pay by tapping their mobile phones at the QuickPass terminals at Doota as well as all Watsons and GS25 and Gong Cha stores in South Korea. They can also pay with their mobile phones at the over 7 million QuickPass terminals across the Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, and New Zealand.

According to Ge Huayong, this cooperation is a significant step UnionPay takes in promoting its mobile QuickPass around the world. First, it upgrades UnionPay’s card-issuing technology in South Korea, which not only enhances card-using security but also caters to cardholders’ new card-using habits. Second, it helps accumulate experience for mobile QuickPass’s future expansion from the Chinese Mainland to other overseas markets, and will serve as a model to attract more institutions to participate in promoting this innovative product. Third, the launch of UnionPay’s innovative products and services overseas will provide richer and more flexible payment experiences for overseas visitors to China.

Suh Joon-Hee said, more and more consumers like to pay with NFC-enabled mobile phones. The UnionPay mobile QuickPass launched this time is a comprehensively upgraded version of the SIM card-based mobile QuickPass launched by the two parties last August. We hope take this as the basis to provide BCcard clients with more convenient mobile payment service that can be used outside South Korea.

Now, UnionPay’s acceptance network in South Korea covers online and offline payment; UnionPay cards can be conveniently used there. About 70,000 ATMs accept UnionPay cards for cash withdrawal. All merchants that accept signature payment accept UnionPay credit cards, while about 1.63 million merchants accept UnionPay cards for PIN-based payment. All the local taxis accept UnionPay credit cards. Meanwhile, over 60,000 Korean online merchants accept UnionPay online payment, covering cosmetics, clothing, food, general merchandise and mother-and-baby products.