To take on popular cordless payment services Samsung Pay and Google Pay, Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus has rolled out its own platform dubbed OnePlus Pay. Available only for Chinese OnePlus users' as of now, the service will be able to connect with NFC-enabled physical payment gateways to make a transaction straight from the smartphone itself. The service was reportedly exclusively available for the OnePlus 7T and OnePlus 7T Pro smartphones.
A GizChina report via ITHome has claimed that the beta version of the service app was made available just before releasing the service for the masses. OnePlus has detailed the technology in its online Chinese consumers' forum. The post claims that NFC-based POS machines will be rolled out in phases with support for more OnePlus smartphones in the next few weeks.
The service currently supports a few debit cards issued by Guangfa Bank, Minsheng Bank, and SPDB. OnePlus Pay will also support credit cards issued by Guangfa Bank and SPDB.
OnePlus Pay runs only on Android-powered HydrogenOS-based devices for now and the company is about to release the feature for OxygenOS running Oneplus smartphones at a later date.
The OnePlus Pay service can be availed of inside the Wallet app. According to the OnePlus blog, the service can also be activated directly by clicking the power button twice. OnePlus claims its payment service is way faster than the competitor Chinese payment systems such as AliPay and WeChat. Apple has added the AliPay payment service to its Apple Pay via a new iOS update.
OnePlus rival Samsung launched its payment platform Samsung Pay a few years ago. Samsung Pay and Google's payment service Google Pay are both quite popular in many Asian and European countries. It would be interesting to see what strategies OnePlus will employ to make its payment system prevail over Google Pay and Samsung Pay.
OnePlus is supposed to launch its next flagship smartphone OnePlus 8 in a few months from now. Rumour mills predict the Chinese smartphone maker will also unveil an affordable OnePlus 8 Lite smartphone with moderate specs to take on affordable smartphones from its rivals.
