Report: Apple Pay And China UnionPay Working Together

Apple Inc. AAPL Pay and China UnionPay was recently noted by MacRumors, that two videos have been posted in the last few days to YouTube which purportedly showed separate Apple Pay transactions being purchased, Apple Insider reported on Thursday. The separate Apple Pay transactions came from an NFC purchase at a McDonald's and an in-app purchase with the Chinese online travel agent Ctrip. The first video shows a customer selecting a UnionPay card in Apple Pay, while holding an iPhone by a QuickPass-enabled Verifone payment terminal to complete the McDonald's purchase. In the second video, there is an iPhone user who appears to complete the transaction using a UnionPay card in Apple Pay with Chinese travel app Ctrip. If that wasn't interesting enough, China Construction Bank, one of China's "big four" banks had been featured in both of the videos, however most of China's UnionPay cards have been seen as being issued by the local banks owned by the municipal governments. According to Apple Insider, the transaction at China Construction Bank may indicate that the UnionPay rollout will happen in stages, similar to the U.S. launch. Just last December, Apple announced its plans to launch with UnionPay in mainland China. Presently, there are 26 million merchants and 1.9 million ATMs accessible to the 5 billion UnionPay Cards, which are issued by the Chinese bankcard network. Shares of Apple declined by nearly 30 percent in the last six months. The company has lost $230 billion in market value since its peak less than one year ago.