PYMNTS was one of many news sources last week that China UnionPay—the state backed pay card solution in China—seems to be pushing into the virtual payments market with an investment in QR codes.
New reporting by Caixin indicates that this may have been an overstatement, and that instead is only providing technical support to a payment company that wants to use UnionPay’s influence to generate pre-launch buzz.
While different from UnionPay directly pursuing a QR code based quick pay system, the news is still noteworthy given that just months ago the PBOC seems to have issued guidelines indicating that QR code based systems are generally frowned on as being unsafe. This was the primary factor in banning virtual payment card systems that were being pursued by online companies such as Alibaba and TenCent.
It is however noteworthy that the types of QR code systems being pursued are somewhat different. The version the internet retailers were pursuing required customers to scan a QR code that contained information like a webpage with order information. The customer then moved online to a payment page to complete the transaction—and it is the final destination on the open internet that the PBOC seems to object to.
The UnionPay backed system, on the other hand uses the QR code to hold users’ personal bank account information, similar to what a physical bankcard carries. A merchant scans the customer’s QR code and finishes the transaction.
“What’s Hot” is aggregated content. PYMNTS.com claims no responsibility for the accuracy of the content published by the original source.
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