India already has Google Pay, PayTM, WhatsApp and others to process UPI payments but what’s better than having a few more alternatives. Xiaomi, one of the largest smartphone maker in India has a slew of highly successful smartphones in budget segments may it be Redmi series, Note series, or Y-series, etc. Well, Xiaomi enthusiasts in India have one more thing to cherish as the Chinese brand has finally launched Mi Pay in India.
Mi Pay launched in China two years ago in 2016 which uses NFC mounted on devices to transact contactless and wirelessly. It uses Unified Payments Interface (UPI) which is a new method of payment from a bank to another bank. Since it is a virtual address, there is no need to share bank account details and other sensitive information.
As of now, Mi Pay is accepted by ICICI Bank and PayU while other banks will join too after its official launch in India as on December 31, 2018. As aforementioned, Mi Pay facilitates UPI which works with the help of UPI-enabled banks where the sender and receiver create a virtual address or identifier which could be either a phone number with an ‘@’ plus an extension of a bank or so. This masks sensitive information such as credit or debit card details as well as banking details.
Mi Pay will be available across all Xiaomi smartphones and in fact, it is a smartly integrated feature in SMS, scanner apps, contacts, and other types of apps on MIUI where the Xiaomi smartphone users can get a hold of it if they are running MIUI Global Beta update. Also, all the information and data created by Mi Pay will be stored in a cloud-based infrastructure in India itself in an encrypted form to escalate security of the data.
The App will be used to perform various tasks such as paying the electricity bill, DTH recharge, phone recharge and bill payment among others and one could expect more options to open up once the app is available thoroughly. As of now, the app will be available for selected few as a beta update and after fixing all the bugs and errors, Xiaomi will roll out a stable version of the app among all Xiaomi smartphones. As of now, there is no official word from the Chinese smartphone maker if the app will be available on other makes and models of smartphones too. You can sign up for Beta update here!!!
