China’s smartphone maker, Xiaomi, today launched its payment app along with the Redmi Go smartphone called Mi-Pay. According to the company, this app has been approved by the National Payments Council of India (NPCI) and for this; ICICI Bank will serve as a Payment Service Provider.
Mi Pay is based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) – the same technology that Paytm and other payments apps use in India. Mi-Pay will be exclusive to MIUI-based Xiaomi smartphone users and will offer smart integration features. Xiaomi says that Mi Pay’s framework will be implemented within MIUI, which means the payment app will be tightly integrated with MIUI. For consumers, this means that they can access several features of Mi Pay via the Contacts, Camera, and SMS app or any other native MIUI app.
Mi Pay was first launched in China back in 2016. Last year, Xiaomi announced it had begun beta testing of the Mi Pay app in India, and in February this year, the Mi Pay app became a part of the MIUI 10 Global Beta ROM. Of course, with the launch, Xiaomi is taking on established UPI-based payments apps in India, such as Google Pay and PhonePe.
Xiaomi says the Mi Pay app will be available via the Mi Apps store soon, and that the framework will be deeply integrated within MIUI over the next couple of weeks so that users will not need to open the Mi Pay app to make payments.
