Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi launched its UPI payment app Mi Pay in India on Tuesday, paving its way into the already-competitive digital payment service segment.

Under UPI or Unified Payment Interface, the user has a unique UPI ID and the transactions are done directly through bank accounts. The UPI user, to make payments, has to provide the UPI user ID of the payee for the transfer. For mobile apps, the users can make UPI transactions with those who use UPI and are listed in their contacts. The payment service was developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)

For Mi Pay, this will be an exclusive UPI app for all Xiaomi smartphone users that run on the software MIUI. The app is available exclusively on the Mi Store App. The Mi Pay users are restricted to make these payments only to other Mi Pay users.

The company, in its statement, said that the app is verified by NPCI and it has tied up with ICICI Bank for its payments. When a UPI app ties up with a bank for payments, it means that the bank will help to facilitate the transactions. These banks are called payment service providers or PSPs.

Xiaomi, so far, has not made any announcement on whether the app will be available on Android or iOS. The app will be competing with the already established UPI service providers such as — Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay, among others.

In India, Xiaomi is among the most popular phones. According to a July 2018 research report by Canalys, six out of ten smartphones sold in India are either Xiaomi or Samsung.