The two platforms have helped revolutionise commerce and personal finance in China, with consumers using the smartphone apps to pay for everything from meals to groceries and travel tickets. Neither Alipay nor WeChat pay has a 50% market share in that sense. IResearch included various types of consumer-initiated payments in the data, including those for purchases, gaming, ride-hailing, money market funds, credit card repayments, bank transfers, and mobile phone top-ups, among others.īut the other criteria that indicate a company’s potential dominant market position refers to a 50% market share in the “nationwide electronic payment market”, which analysts say is a much wider concept that should also include card payments and bank payments. Each has over one-third of what iResearch calls the “third-party mobile payment market”, which is a similar concept as the “non-bank payment service market” mentioned in the central bank’s new rules. While no official statistics are available yet, iResearch’s data shows that both Alipay and WeChat Pay may have already met PBoC’s criteria for an antitrust warning. While they don’t single out specific payment agencies, attention has focused on how the country’s two major digital payment platforms used by a combined 1 billion people – Tencent’s WeChat Pay and Ant Group’s Alipay – will comply with the new rules.Īlipay had 55.6% and WeChat Pay 38.8% of China’s third-party mobile payment market, according to payment volume in the second quarter of 2020, iResearch said in a report released in September last year. The rules present the strongest and most detailed message yet of regulators’ plans to curb monopolistic practices in the online payments industry. The PBoC is seeking public comment on the draft rules through until 19 February, and firms already with payment licences will have a one-year grace period to comply with the new rules. The draft rules also stressed that reserve funds are not the property of payment agencies, and payment agencies must deposit them with the PBoC or qualified commercial banks. Under the new rules, payment businesses will be re-categorized into two types – stored value account operations and payment transaction handling. If one payment company reaches a 50% market share in the “nationwide electronic payment market”, or two payment companies together have two-thirds of such market, the central bank can also call for the agencies to review whether the institutions have a dominant market position. “If any non-bank payment institution in a dominant market position fails to follow the principles of safety, efficiency, honesty and fair competition, and the healthy development of the payment service market is seriously affected, the PBoC can suggest that the State Council’s anti-monopoly law-enforcement agencies stop market dominance abuse and centralization by splitting the institutions based on payment business types,” Article 57 of the rules says.Īccording to the rules, if one payment company reaches a one-third market share in the “non-bank payment service market”, or two payment companies together have half of such market, the PBoC can alert the State Council’s anti-monopoly law-enforcement agencies to summon the company/s for a warning. This follows the regulators’ issuance of micro-lending rules in November that led to the suspension of the massive IPO of Jack Ma’s Ant Group, the operator of Alipay, and the draft rules are the latest in an array of anti-monopoly efforts by Beijing focused on China’s fintech giants.īuilding on the foundation of the Administrative Measures of Payment Services by Non-financial Institutions that People’s Bank of China released in 2010 and factoring in new market developments, the new rules will increase the legal effects of regulations over payment institutions, the central bank said in a statement. Criteria specified by the rules has triggered red flags for both Alipay and WeChat Pay. (ATF) China’s central bank unveiled draft rules for online payment firms on Wednesday that say companies that have abused their dominance in the payment sphere will be forced to split up.
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