[THE INVESTOR] Telecom operator KT and its subsidiary BC Card have partnered with Chinese bank card UnionPay International to launch UnionPay HCE mobile QuickPass in Korea, which will enable the local cardholders to pay by tapping their mobile phones, the companies said on June 29.

Mobile QuickPass is UnionPay’s new mobile payment solution. It supports both offline contactless payment and online payment. It encompasses many mobile payment products, including HCE, Apple Pay and Sumsang Pay. 

According to UnionPay, over 19 million UnionPay cards have been issued in Korea. Over the first 5 months of this year, the transaction volume of Korea-issued UnionPay cards in mainland China grew 45 percent year-on-year.

After the launch, Korean cardholders can bind their UnionPay cards issued by BC Card or its members with their NFC-enabled mobile phones. Then, they can tap their phones to pay at the QuickPass terminals at Doota, all local Watsons and GS25 and Gong Cha stores, as well as at over 7 million QuickPass terminals across mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore and New Zealand.

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)