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NFC Times Excusive Insight – China’s mobile payments market continues to heat up, with Chinese smartphone makers Huawei and Xiaomi announcing lineups of major banks as well as transit agencies participating in their respective NFC-based ‘Pays’ services.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Twelve months after launch, Samsung Pay is available in seven countries and eight total markets with users having made a combined 100 million or so transactions over the past year, but the tech giant is not disclosing its total number of users.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Credible reports say that Chinese smartphone manufacturer ZTE plans to join the “OEM Pay” club, and that the company has signed an agreement with payments network China UnionPay to deploy an NFC-enabled mobile payments service in China.

NFC Times Exclusive – SHANGHAI, China: While Apple has signed up more banks and is believed to have more cards registered in China for its Apple Pay service–around 10 million, according to a source–Samsung is seeking to outflank its rival with more acceptance points and more applications for Samsung Pay, NFC Times has learned.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – In an effort to deliver on the promise of a "true mobile wallet" and, of course, boost its flagging smartphone market share in China, Samsung has struck a deal with Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial Services to enable the Alipay QR code-based payments service in China through Samsung Pay.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is the latest OEM to announce plans to join the “Pays” club, working with payments network China UnionPay to launch an NFC-enabled mobile payments service in China, although giving no details on a launch date or participating banks.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Chinese payment network China UnionPay has announced support for Huawei Pay, a deal that could substantially expand the number of banks and payments cards that Huawei could enable for its NFC payments service as it seeks to compete with Apple and Apple Pay.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – The decision by major Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi to include embedded secure elements in its new flagship, the Mi 5, may signal that other Chinese OEMs will also back the technology for their devices, but those embedded chips would mainly be targeted at transit ticketing applications, not payment like Apple Pay.

NFC Times Exclusive – Some major Chinese banks are telling their customers that Apple Pay will launch on Thursday in China, which will become Apple’s biggest market for its payments service after the U.S.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Apple has announced overdue plans to launch Apple Pay in China early next year, touting a list of 15 major banks that will enable customers to load their credit and debit cards in its Wallet app, including China’s big four state-owned banks. Meanwhile, Samsung followed with an announcement of its planned launch of Samsung Pay in China, which was also expected.