China Payments Research
China’s fintech sector has enjoyed significant development, but has recently been constrained by more active regulators who have increased their rate of regulation to try and stay ahead of the industry development. After two years of planning and industry development, a public-private body was established by the People's Bank of China - the National Internet Finance Association.
Tencent was reporting its quarterly earnings on March 17th and for the first time the company disclosed its WeChat Wallet fees that the company pays to partner banks. Tencent CEO Pony Ma said the fees are 0.1% of each transaction and totalled more than RMB 300 million in January.
China’s mobile giant Huawei teams up with Bank of China on E-wallet payment
Written by Qinwen WangChina’s mobile giant Huawei held a signing ceremony in Huawei's Shenzhen headquarters with Bank of China to co-develop next mobile based payment system Huawei Pay. This announcement was just released after Apple Pay and Samsung Pay claimed to make its entry in to China.
Recently a lawyer in China caused a stir in the payments industry by filing a complaint with the People's Bank of China (PBOC) on Meituan, China’s major O2O platform which is worth tens of USD billions. The complaint alleged that Meituan is engaged in payment settlement without having a required payments license.
China works to stem the money outflow by freezing the QDLP investment program
Written by Qinwen WangFor many years, the Chinese government has encouraged cross-border investment, both to support the domestic stock markets, but to also give domestic investors more choice in investment options and products. One such program was the QDLP program or Qualified Domestic Limited Partner scheme. Due to the renewed focus on controlling outflows, this program is now stopped.
How UnionPay pushes its foreign cardholders to use their cards online
Written by Denis SuslovAlthough UnionPay is known for its control of the domestic Chinese payment market, it also has over 50 million cards issued overseas. So in other words, a China UnionPay branded card issued by a foreign bank in a foreign country and a foreign currency. In its international push, UnionPay would like its cards to be used both online and offline. Foreign cardholders are increasingly using them for paying at POS and for ATM cash withdrawal, however, there was never a compelling case to use UnionPay cards online, where established card brands like Visa and MasterCard dominate.
When talking about O2O (Online to Offline), we should keep in mind that the key to the O2O business success lays in the hardware and acceptance support from offline merchants. Eventually, it’s up to merchant’s willingness to accept a new digital payment method or not. Beyond the merchant fee and technology required, the key criteria for a merchant to decide is the user base of a particular payment method.
A tightening regulatory policy towards third party payment has driven China's payment industry into a period of consolidation and M&A. For some, this has been a great opportunity to get into other segments of the market like O2O (online to offline). We saw this in 2015 when Wanda bought 99bill. This time it's Lakala with a help of with a company called ‘Tibet Tourism.’
UnionPay's data arm collaborates with a global advertising network to combine card transaction and consumer behavior data
Written by Denis SuslovIn January 2015, UnionPay Smart, a China UnionPay company specialized in business intelligence, customer profiling and online marketing, announced an agreement with Isobar China, a part of global Top-5 advertising conglomerate Dentsu Aegis. Together with Isobar China, UnionPay Smart will build a data management platform (DMP) targeting online advertising.
In January 2015, Chang-Go, one of the more successful prepaid card companies operating in China, was ordered by China's Central Bank to stop operations. According to the bank, the company was not giving customers refunds in a full manner, misappropriated reserve deposits and even forged financial documents.
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With Samsung Pay and Apple Pay both coming to China, what to expect next?
Written by Paolo Di Fonzo2016 should be the year when finally Apple Pay manages to launch in China, as announced by the Cupertino-based company on its own website and as was already reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier this past autumn. This wasn't really a surprise as Apple had long talked about its China plans for Apple Pay. Less expected, Samsung Pay is also going through the same process and should also launch in 2016.
How China's mobile payment regulations fit into the broader strategy for the financial industry
Written by Zennon KapronOn the 28th of December, China promulgated the next set of mobile payment regulations. Although some of the regulation was expected, how will the rest impact the mobile payment industry development in 2016?
Could China’s Yelp, Dianping be the international opportunity for China’s O2O business?
Written by Qinwen Wang
China’s digital travel landscape is a world in its own. Increasingly, globe-trotting Chinese are turning away from prepaid package tours and becoming more mobile savvy in applications from hotel booking to local entertainment. It is estimated recently by Dianping, a restaurant review and coupon website that Chinese outbound tourists are forecast to spend 250 billion yuan (US$39 billion) on food in 2015, 25% more than in 2014.
Early last month, in a statement released from the Monetary Authority of Macau, Alipay was approved for use in Macau's gaming market a fact confirmed by the industry that now macau residents and/or institutions can have an Alipay account and use it for payments.