A week after a service outage that left its payments in limbo, China UnionPay has now launched a new payment tool called "Zhi Fu Yi" (Easy Payment).

China UnionPay's Zhi Fu Yi comes bundled in a device that looks like an ordinary telephone, but users can use it to make payments.

China UnionPay says that in addition to paying water, electricity and gas fees, the telephone can also be used to pay telecom fees, prepaid mobile phones, and air ticket bookings.

Lian Jian, general manager of Shanghai Kayou Information Service Company, a wholly-owned company of China UnionPay, says that the development of Zhi Fu Yi was completed in July last year and they have already released about 10000 devices in Shanghai in cooperation with China Merchants Bank.

China UnionPay's statistics shows that during the test phase from January to March this year, the transaction scale of Zhi Fu Yi was growing almost by two-fold each month.