Apple and China UnionPay have agreed to work together to bring Apple Pay to the country in the near future, according to a news report in China and confirmed by MarketWatch.

No additional details were available, but this is not the first time Apple and China UnionPay have been in discussions about mobile payments. China's mobile payments market is largely based on QR-code systems from third parties such as Alipay and Tencent. But Alipay recently partnered with transit agencies in China for NFC-enabled mobile payments.

A deal between Apple and China UnionPay is significant since Chinese consumers are enamored with the iPhone. China Mobile alone has some 45 million iPhone subscribers, according to MarketWatch's report. Exact iPhone figures are not available for China Unicom and China Telecom, but all three companies will sell the new iPhones.