Battle looms over mobile pay systems

NFC is not popular even in the United States, where Apple first deployed its wireless payment service known as Apple Pay. The service is available only in selected stores in the US, including McDonald's Corp restaurants and department stores run by Macy's Inc.

Popular retailers such as Best Buy Co Inc (electronics), Wal-Mart Stores Inc and two major pharmacy chains (CVS Health Corp and Rite-Aid Corp) do not accept Apple Pay.

Over the past week, Apple announced it had started to accept online payments made through UnionPay cards at its Chinese mainland app store. The US-based company subsequently kicked off a UnionPay-customers-only promotion campaign by lowering the download price of more than 100 apps to 1 yuan (16 cents).

Analysts speculated this move meant Apple would soon launch Apple Pay on the Chinese mainland.

According to industry consultancy Forrester Research Inc, Apple Pay's technology will accelerate payments and enable new customer experiences in the coming year.

"China and Australia will run ahead with Apple Pay on mobile (in 2015)," Forrester said.

It also said that the mobile payments landscape in China and other Asia-Pacific markets would remain fragmented over the next year. Wang said the official Apple Pay launch in China is likely in March 2015.

Li Ye, a researcher from Analysys International, said that with China opening up the bank card clearing market, UnionPay's position as the only bank card organization is being challenged.

"Quick emergence of third-party online transaction channels forced UnionPay to find new business models suited to the mobile Internet era," Li said.

The mobile transaction volume of third-party platforms exceeded 2 trillion yuan in the third quarter of this year, a jump of 25.6 percent year-on-year, statistics from Analysys International show.

"Although Apple Pay has yet to enter the Chinese market, it has heightened local players' interest in mobile phone payments and NFC technology," it said.

Wu Yiyao in Shanghai contributed to this story.