Bank of China Partners With China UnionPay to Explore Blockchain for Payment Systems

The commercial, state-backed Bank of China (BOC) and financial services corporation China UnionPay (CUP) have entered into a partnership, according to an August 15 announcement. Per the terms of the agreement, the two parties will jointly explore blockchain technology applications for payment system development.

The partnership comes in response to market demand and regulatory requirements, giving rise to further opportunities for cooperation between the two parties in the field of cross-border mobile payments.

The BOC and CUP will jointly investigate big data and distributed ledger technology deployment in order to improve mobile banking products.

Within the initiative, CUP aims to build a unified port for mobile integrated financial services, where cardholders will be able to use a QR code to spend, transfer and trade on a cloud flash payment app.

The BOC will subsequently launch a promotional program of the payment system to provide customers with a “safer, more convenient and more efficient mobile payment service experience.”

Yesterday, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Business School received a $20 million research grant to improve the security capabilities of electronic payment systems. The university along with other parties will discuss the enhancement of the electronic payment security system and explore blockchain technology applications in the field.

Last week, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) proposed a number of measures to speed up the promotion of blockchain applications in the country in a move to provide a “healthy and orderly development of the industry.”

The MIIT intends to provide a gradual extension of blockchain applications from the financial sector to other industries, such as electronic deposit services, supply chain management, Internet of Things (IoT), and others.