Apple reportedly reaches a deal with Chinese mobile payment service

Apple has reportedly reached an agreement with China UnionPay on a mobile payment service. The seal the deal Apple agreed to include NFC into their next generation iPhones. This isn’t anything new to Apple as they have a very long list of patent-pending inventions on record for integrating NFC into their future iWallet system. Apple’s future iWallet is likely to support both NFC and iBeacon solutions.

According to Shanghai Mobile analyst Frank Hill, Apple has reached a deal with mobile payment provider China UnionPay that would enable the next iPhone to make purchases at millions of supported Chinese point-of-sale devices. This would work in conjunction with NFC hardware said to be included in the next iPhone model. UnionPay works with many of China’s major banks, and is the only domestic mobile payment company operating in the country. Several banks have reportedly been invited by UnionPay to participate in the development of a new system that is compatible with iOS devices.  While rumors of NFC in the iPhone have been relatively rare compared to some previous upgrade cycles, this isn’t the first time this year we’ve seen mentions of the technology finally making its way into Apple’s smartphone.