(Yicai) Jan. 15 -- Visa has allowed Chinese holders to link their locally issued cards to Apple Pay, providing them with a more convenient cross-border payment experience and making it the first international payment card services provider to support the feature.

With Visa's support for Apple Pay card binding, Chinese cardholders can pay contactless at overseas locations that support near-field communication payments, without the need to open any apps during the process, the California-based company announced today. Users can also directly pay with Apple Pay without needing to create an additional account when shopping on foreign apps or websites, it added.

Apple launched its mobile payment service in 2014, utilizing NFC technology. It entered the Chinese market in 2016, but only accepted cards that were certified by the country's top bank card network China UnionPay.

Consumer demand for mobile payments continues to increase worldwide, so Visa is committed to providing Chinese cardholders with diverse options, enabling them to enjoy secure and convenient payment services wherever they go, said Yin Xiaolong, General Manager at Visa China.

To ensure the security of card binding with Apple Pay, Visa has increased its investment in data and payment security, launching payment tokenization services and implementing them in cross-border scenarios, Yin pointed out.

Tokenization is a key technology for ensuring the security of mobile payments. It generates a unique payment token to replace the credit card number during transaction verification, thereby protecting sensitive information, including credit card numbers and identity details.

Visa will initially support eight Chinese banks for credit card binding with Apple Pay: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of Communications, China Merchants Bank, China Citic Bank, Ping An Bank, and Industrial Bank.

Visa and Apple are working to expand ties with additional issuing institutions, including Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, China Construction Bank, China Minsheng Bank, and China Everbright Bank, the card organization said, adding that related functionalities will be gradually rolled out.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Martin Kadiev