The mobile payments market in Canada could soon have another major player.
This past weekend, Huawei announced it’s partnering with UnionPay, China’s largest financial services institution, to roll out Huawei Pay internationally. The OEM first launched Huawei Pay in its native China in 2016.
Moving forward, Huawei and Honour smartphone users outside of China will be able to use their devices to store UnionPay bank cards and complete transactions. As long as the point-of-sales terminal supports UnionPay’s QuickPass platform, the experience should be seamless, much like it is with Android Pay and Apple Pay.
Huawei first international target is Russia. According to the manufacturer, approximately 85 percent point-of-sales terminals and ATMs in the country accept UnionPay cards. Moreover, to date, Russian banks have issued about 1.3 million UnionPay cards.
“Huawei hopes to work with partners such as UnionPay International to provide more secure and convenient mobile payment services for every user of Huawei smart devices around the world,” said Alex Zhang, president of Huawei Consumer Cloud Service, in a January 27th press release.
When asked to comment on whether Huawei plans to bring Huawei Pay to Canada, a spokesperson for said, “Huawei does not plan to bring Huawei Pay to Canada at this time.”
That said, the infrastructure is in place for the company should it decide to bring Huawei Pay to Canada at a later date. In the summer of 2016, UnionPay launched QuickPass in Canada. At launch, the company said 70,000 merchants across Canada were equipped to handle mobile payments facilitated through QuickPass.
Source: Huawei
