Xiaomi Unveils Mi Pay Service In India; Mobile Payment Users Rise In Vietnam

Welcome to The Axis, your late look at payments news from around the world. Coverage includes Xiaomi’s unveiling of its Mi Pay mobile payment service in India. In addition, the number of people making mobile payments in stores is on the move in Vietnam and more than four in 10 credit and debit transactions were processed through contactless technology in the United Kingdom last year.

Xiaomi unveiled its Mi Pay mobile payment service, which is based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), at a media event in India, Android Authority reported. Through the app, users can make payments via multiple options like credit cards, debit cards, UPI and net banking. At the same time, it was reported that the option lets users make payments from more than 120 billers. The payment option was first rolled out in 2016 in China and enables contactless payments similar to Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay. And, as was the case with Google and Google Pay, Xiaomi tapped the UPI system for its payment service.

In payments news from Asia, the number of people making mobile payments in stores is on the rise in Vietnam, VN Express reported. While just 37 percent of respondents made mobile payments last year, that share has surged to 61 percent in 2019. State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Department of Payments Deputy Director Nghiem Thanh Son has said, according to the outlet, “Mobile payment is becoming a new trend with the rise of technologies such as QR codes, contactless payments, and the tokenization of card information.” At the same time, it was reported that 64 percent of people in Hong Kong made mobile payments in stores in 2019, as did 67 percent of people in Thailand and 86 percent of people in China.

And over 40 percent of all credit and debit transactions in the United Kingdom were processed through contactless technology last year, per data from U.K. Finance, according to reports. In addition, almost 7.4 billion contactless transactions were conducted last year, which represents a rise of a little more than 31 percent from 2017. As it stands, consumers in the U.K. spent 584 billion GBP through debit cards, and total credit card spending reached 192 billion GBP. It was also reported that the average spend on credit and debit card transactions was 35 GBP.