(30 November 2012 – China) China Merchants Bank (CMB) and Telco China Unicom are preparing to launch an NFC-based mobile wallet in Shanghai in December ahead of a national roll out.From next month, Shanghai residents will be able to link their CMB accounts to the SIMs in various NFC-enabled handsets such as the Samsung Galaxy SIII.
Low value purchases can then be made by tapping handsets against the city’s 162,000 point-of-sales terminals which incorporate China UnionPay’s QuickPass contactless technology.
Both CMB and Telco China Unicom said they have plans to extend the service to their tens of millions of customers nationwide in 2013 while they work on other mobile money features such as remote payments.