# UnionPay QR > Source: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/unionpay-qr > research date 2026-05-30 · extracted at 2026-10-06 > Publisher: Barcoder — encyclopedia of QR, barcode and payment-code standards Specifications: - [EMV QR Code Specifications — EMVCo](https://www.emvco.com/emv-technologies/qr-codes/) - [UnionPay QR Code Payment — UnionPay International](https://m.unionpayintl.com/en/servicesProducts/MobilePayment/QRCodePayment/) - [In-store QR Code Payment — UnionPay International Developer](https://developer.unionpayintl.com/cjweb/business/product/detail/introduction/26) # UnionPay QR ## Overview **UnionPay QR** (often presented under the **QuickPass** / **云闪付 (Cloud QuickPass)** brand) is China UnionPay's QR-code payment scheme, operated internationally by **UnionPay International (UPI)** [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN). Its merchant-presented form is built on **EMVCo Merchant-Presented Mode (MPM)** — the same TLV container used by the broader national-QR family — so a UnionPay QR is, at the wire level, an EMVCo MPM payload carrying UnionPay's scheme identifier [[emv]]. UnionPay's card and acceptance network reaches **180+ countries and regions**, and its QR acceptance rides on that same global footprint [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN), [upi]. China's domestic payment surface is dominated by Alipay and WeChat Pay; UnionPay QR is the bank-card-network entrant, and notably QR-code interoperability has been pursued between Alipay, WeChat Pay, and UnionPay [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN). UnionPay (China UnionPay, 中国银联) is the bank-card network founded in **2002** under the People's Bank of China, with **UnionPay International** established to run its overseas business [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN), [upi]. **12 December 2015 — QuickPass launched** in Beijing with over 20 Chinese commercial banks, originally as a contactless service centred on NFC/HCE/TSM and tokenisation technologies [7][7]. **2016 — UnionPay QR Code payment launched** [8][8]. The product extended the QuickPass brand from contactless cards to scannable EMVCo MPM merchant QR codes, positioning UnionPay's bank-card consortium as the bank industry's response to wallet-led Alipay and WeChat Pay [7][7], [8][8]. **2017 — major-bank rollout.** UnionPay partnered with all top-tier Chinese commercial banks — Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, ICBC and others — to roll the QR product into their mobile-banking apps [8][8]. **11 December 2017 — Cloud QuickPass (云闪付) launched.** UnionPay merged the legacy *UnionPay app* and *UnionPay Wallet* into a single consumer mobile + online payment app under the new "云闪付" (Cloud QuickPass / *Yúnshǎnfù*) brand [9][9]. The merged app supports QR-code payments, in-app online payments and NFC QuickPass contactless on a single credential, designed to compete directly with Alipay and WeChat Pay [9][9]. **24 October 2018 — Cloud QuickPass Partners Programme** launched at the inaugural Partners Conference in Wuhan; by 2018 the app had passed **100 million users** [7][7], [8][8]. By **Q1 2022** UnionPay reported **650 million UnionPay QR Code users** [8][8]. **2021 — international footprint reaches 33 QR-code countries** (contactless: 51) [9][9]. By 2024 the merchant-acceptance picture inside China included **47 major cities** with QR-enabled metro fare, buses across **1,500+ prefectures and counties**, **550,000+ merchants**, **~200,000 convenience stores** and **300,000+ self-service terminals** [8][8]. China's broader QR ecosystem reached **interoperability** between Alipay, WeChat Pay, and UnionPay, and a **unified cross-border QR pilot** launched in 2024 (reported at 427M CNY processed) [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN). By June 2024 China counted **969 million mobile-payment users** and a **38.3 % QR-payment penetration**, the highest in the world [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN). ## Technical specification UnionPay QR's merchant-presented form is an **EMVCo Merchant-Presented Mode (MPM)** payload [[emv]]. **EMVCo MPM foundation** [[emv]]: - Payload format: **TLV (Tag-Length-Value)** plain-text string, rendered as a [QR Code](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/qr-code) symbol. - **Payload Format Indicator** (tag `00`) = `"01"`. - Integrity: **CRC-16/CCITT-FALSE** appended as the final field, tag `63`. - Static and dynamic QR variants are supported by the MPM container. - Country Code carried in tag `58`, Transaction Currency in tag `53`, Merchant Name in tag `59`, Merchant City in tag `60`, Merchant Category Code (MCC) in tag `52`. **UnionPay scheme identity** [emv], [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN): - UnionPay's scheme is identified by the EMV **Application Identifier (AID)** `A000000333010101` (the registered application identifier under UnionPay's RID `A000000333`). - Inside an EMVCo MPM payload, a payment scheme occupies one **Merchant Account Information** template (tags `02`–`51`), whose first sub-element is a **Globally Unique Identifier (GUI)** carrying the scheme AID. **Merchant-template tag — honest caveat:** The **exact tag number** that UnionPay's merchant-account-information template occupies is **not pinned by the public EMVCo example set** — the published EMVCo MPM examples do not assign a fixed slot to UnionPay. By convention, and per UnionPay's documented reserved international-scheme slot, this is described as **tag `15`** [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN). The interactive playground on this page therefore uses **tag `15`** with GUI `A000000333010101` purely to illustrate the EMVCo MPM container shape for a UnionPay-branded code; it should be read as "conventionally / per UnionPay sub-spec," not as a value lifted from the public EMVCo example set. **Defaults used by the ## Use cases - **Merchant-presented retail QR** — a printed or POS-displayed EMVCo MPM code that any UnionPay-enabled wallet (Cloud QuickPass and partner bank apps) can scan to pay [emv], [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN). - **Cross-border acceptance** — UnionPay's 180+ country/region acceptance network extends to QR acceptance, making UnionPay QR a tool for Chinese cardholders abroad and for inbound acceptance of UnionPay credentials [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN), [upi]. - **Interoperable domestic QR** — within China, QR-code interoperability has been pursued between Alipay, WeChat Pay, and UnionPay, so a single merchant code can be scanned across schemes [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN). - **Embedded inside other national QR schemes** — UnionPay merchant-account-information templates also appear inside India's [Bharat QR](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/bharat-qr), which carries Visa, Mastercard, RuPay and UnionPay templates in one EMVCo MPM code. China-market context [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN): - **969 million** mobile-payment users (June 2024) - **38.3 %** QR-payment penetration (world-leading) - Unified cross-border QR pilot launched 2024 (427M CNY reported) UnionPay QR's merchant-presented form is a standard **EMVCo MPM** payload; the UnionPay-specific part is the **AID `A000000333010101`** inside a merchant-account-information template (tag 26-51 sub-tag `00`) [[emv]]. There is no UnionPay-branded open-source encoder; the implementation surface is the EMVCo-MPM library ecosystem with the UnionPay AID configured. **Generic EMVCo-MPM encoder/decoder libraries** — populate a tag-26 (or other 26-51) MAI template with sub-tag `00 = A000000333010101` to emit a UnionPay-acceptance code: | Repo | Language | Stars | License | Last release | Notes | |---|---|---:|---|---|---| | [mvallim/emv-qrcode](https://github.com/mvallim/emv-qrcode) | Java | 128 | Apache-2.0 | v0.1.5, May 2026 | Full MPM v1.1 + CPM v1.1 encode/decode with CRC16 + duplicate-tag checks; "production ready (uses in several projects)" per README [10][10] | | [mercari/go-emv-code](https://github.com/mercari/go-emv-code) | Go | 70 | MIT | v0.1.5, Aug 2023 | Encoder/decoder for both Merchant- and Consumer-Presented modes; built by **Mercari** for its payments stack — production-grade Go reference [11][11] | | [dongri/emv-qrcode](https://github.com/dongri/emv-qrcode) | Go | 58 | — | 2024 | Independent Go MPM/CPM encoder/parser [12][12] | **UnionPay's own integration paths** (closed-source): - **UnionPay International Developer Portal** — *In-store QR Code Payment* product covers merchant-presented and consumer-presented flows for cross-border UnionPay QR acceptance [[upi-dev]]. - **Cloud QuickPass (云闪付)** app — the consumer wallet that issues UnionPay QR for sending and scans EMVCo MPM merchant codes (including the interoperable Alipay/WeChat/UnionPay QR codes) [7][7], [9][9]. UnionPay QR also appears as a **template inside multi-scheme national QR codes** (notably India's [Bharat QR](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/bharat-qr)), where the same AID `A000000333010101` is co-embedded alongside Visa, Mastercard and RuPay templates in one EMVCo MPM code. ## Comparison **vs. [EMVCo MPM](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/emvco-mpm)** — UnionPay QR is a *branded profile of* EMVCo MPM, not a separate wire format. The container, CRC, and tag grammar are EMVCo's; UnionPay contributes the scheme AID `A000000333010101` and (per its sub-spec) a reserved merchant-template slot. **vs. [Alipay QR](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/alipay-qr) / [WeChat Pay QR](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/wechat-pay-qr)** — Alipay and WeChat Pay are wallet-native QR schemes that historically used their own proprietary payloads and dominate the Chinese consumer market (92 % / 85 % preference) [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN). UnionPay QR is the **bank-card-network** scheme; the three have pursued QR interoperability so merchants need not maintain three separate codes [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN). **vs. [Bharat QR](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/bharat-qr)** — Bharat QR is a multi-scheme EMVCo MPM code carrying several card-network templates at once, **including a UnionPay template**. UnionPay QR is the single-scheme expression of the same UnionPay template; Bharat QR shows it composed alongside Visa/Mastercard/RuPay. ## Fun facts **Card-network-first path to QR ubiquity.** UnionPay is one of the **largest card networks in the world by cards issued**, and its acceptance footprint of **180+ countries and regions** means a UnionPay QR rides the same rails that already accept UnionPay cards [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN), [upi] — the opposite of the wallet-first paths Alipay and WeChat Pay took. By Q1 2022 UnionPay reported **650 million UnionPay QR Code users**, a scale built largely through bank-app distribution rather than a single dominant super-app [8][8]. **A single physical merchant QR in China can be scheme-agnostic.** Thanks to Alipay / WeChat Pay / UnionPay QR interoperability, one EMVCo MPM code can route across all three rails — three of the largest payment networks on earth resolving to one printed sticker [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN). **An eight-year retrofit from contactless to QR to merger.** UnionPay's QuickPass brand launched **12 December 2015** as a *contactless* (NFC/HCE) product; the QR-code form arrived in **2016**; the two were merged with the legacy UnionPay app/wallet into the unified **Cloud QuickPass (云闪付)** app on **11 December 2017** — almost exactly two years to the day after the original QuickPass launch [7][7], [9][9]. The mid-2018 Wuhan Partners Conference then made the consortium a co-marketing programme across 20+ banks [7][7]. ## Status **Active.** UnionPay QR operates as part of the QuickPass / Cloud QuickPass ecosystem and rides UnionPay International's global acceptance network [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN), [upi]. China's QR-payment market continues to lead the world in penetration (38.3 %, 969M mobile-payment users as of June 2024), with a unified cross-border QR pilot active since 2024 [China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN). No deprecation is indicated. ## Sources [emv]: https://www.emvco.com/emv-technologies/qr-codes/ [upi]: https://www.unionpayintl.com/en/ [upi-dev]: https://developer.unionpayintl.com/cjweb/business/product/detail/introduction/26 [cn-cro]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN [7]: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/unionpay-and-its-partners-jointly-launch-quickpass--innovative-finance-benefits-public-welfare-and-shapes-the-blueprint-of-mobile-payment-300192909.html [8]: https://www.silkpay.eu/blog/unionpay-qr-code-payment-conquers-the-asian-and-overseas-market [9]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnionPay_(application) [10]: https://github.com/mvallim/emv-qrcode [11]: https://github.com/mercari/go-emv-code [12]: https://github.com/dongri/emv-qrcode 1. [EMV QR Code Specifications — EMVCo][emv] 2. [UnionPay International][upi] 3. [CN-china.md (in-corpus country report)][China report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN) 4. [In-store QR Code Payment — UnionPay International Developer][upi-dev] 5. [UnionPay and partners jointly launch QuickPass (Dec 2015) — PR Newswire][7] 6. [UnionPay QR Code Payment conquers Asia & overseas — Silkpay][8] 7. [UnionPay (application) — Wikipedia][9] 8. [mvallim/emv-qrcode — GitHub][10] 9. [mercari/go-emv-code — GitHub][11] 10. [dongri/emv-qrcode — GitHub][12] ## Deployments Found in the following country reports (grep across `reports/countries/`): - **CN** — [CN-china.md](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN) ## Deployments Found in the following country reports (grep across `reports/countries/`): - **CN** — [CN-china.md](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CN) - **LA** — [LA-laos.md](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/LA)