China UnionPay cardholders will have access to Apple Pay starting in 2016, upon receiving approval Chinese regulators.
Using iPhone, Apple Watch and iPad, cardholders will be able to easily add their bank cards to Apple Pay.
China UnionPay executive vice president Chai Hongfeng said: "China UnionPay is dedicated to promoting payment innovations and providing secure, convenient mobile payment experiences for its hundreds of millions of cardholders, aligning multiple parties in the industry.
"We’re very excited to offer Apple Pay among a diverse set of innovative payment options that work with China UnionPay QuickPass."
China UnionPay’s QuickPass and Apple Pay employ payment tokenization technology to protect customer payment information.
Apple Pay is said to provide better security as actual credit or debit card numbers are not stored on the device, nor on Apple servers. Instead, the payment service assigns a unique Device Account Number, which is encrypted and stored in a dedicated chip called the Secure Element on your device.
A one-time unique dynamic security code is generated for each transaction to authenticate the user.
Apple internet software and services senior vice president Eddy Cue said: "Apple Pay has revolutionized the way millions of people pay every day with their iPhone, Apple Watch and iPad.
"China is an extremely important market for Apple and with China UnionPay and support from 15 of China’s leading banks, users will soon have a convenient, private and secure payment experience."
The UnionPay card is accepted across more than 150 countries and regions worldwide. It can be used in more than 26 million merchants and 1.9 million ATMs.
