HTC joins the board for supporting UnionPay’s mobile payment

An agreement between High Tech Computer Corporation (HTC), China UnionPay and F-ROAD has been signed on August 9 that will see UnionPay’s mobile payment and associated business promoted.
There are two standards across China, led by UnionPay and China Mobile Ltd. respectively.
In addition, China Mobile boasts of over 20 million registered users for mobile payment, of which the figure for active users on a monthly basis stands at 2 million while the transaction value hit $469.19 million for 2010 as compared to more than $62.55 million ending March 2011.
On the other hand, the standard adopted by UnionPay is apparently popular with financial institutions and banks. 157 banks had signed business agreements with UnionPay as on June 2011, while 60 banks are currently availing of the non-card payment platform of UnionPay.
At the moment, UnionPay just has 400,000 POSes in support of mobile payment, although, this figure is expected to reach 600,000 to 700,000 units before the close of this year. In addition, HTC is known to be bracing up to launch a model of smartphone that will come with inbuilt support for UnionPay’s mobile payment standard. Meanwhile, China Mobile is also planning the release of devices those will support both the existing standards.