Apple Inc. an American electronic company, has opened a smart-phone payment system in the city of Harbin, Heilongjiang province, an area where the electronic-payment market is already dominated by the e-commerce giant Alibaba, on Feb 18.

The company works with China’s Union Pay, a state-owned credit card processor which explains that the payment system covers 12 banks and 10,000 merchants, including Carrefour and Wal-Mart.

The Apple system lets Union Pay cardholders to make a payment via an Apple iPhone, or Apple Watches and iPads, without using a credit card or cash and Union Pay analysts say people are becoming more accustomed to the new way of payment and that they expect more people to adopt Apple’s e-payment system in view of the large number of Apple devices in use.

Apple Pay is the most recent arrival to the Chinese e-payment business which lets smart-phone users do their shopping online and even order a taxi, send money to friends, pay bills and do their investing. This market is now dominated by Alibaba’s Alipay, while WeChat Payment, operated by Tencent Holdings, a social networking and gaming company, is also popular.

Apple's electronic payment system started in the United States in October 2014 and has spread to Britain, Canada and Australia.